Daryl Dixon- Looking out for your own
by HanwooS96x
Summary: When it happened to the world, Harper got lucky. She survived on her own for 13 months without trouble, but when her safety is torn away by a rowdy group of survivors, ironically, they could be the only things keeping her alive. Forging new friendships is easier said than done, can she break through to the only one like her, the unruly and boisterous redneck Daryl Dixon?
1. Waking up

I don't know how I ended up here. Everybody talks now about how the world went to shit in a day, but for me, it went from shit to worse. Believe it or not, the restless hoards of the undead returning to feast on the flesh of the living weren't the biggest of my problems.

Cold. That was the thing that hit me hardest upon regaining consciousness, not the stabbing pangs of hunger from countless days of starving, or the gaping hole where the bullet had gone in, it was the freezing concrete floor I was sprawled on. I twitched my hand, and gingerly prodded my wound. Fuck. That was a mistake. I don't know what was so funny about it, but I withdrew my hand just laughed, and I kept laughing for about 4 minutes until I could hardly breathe and was sure I was about to pass out again. I waited to calm myself, pooling my thoughts. I couldn't even remember what had happened...fully, anyway. Sudden memories shot through my mind like lightening, causing painful stabbing sensations in my skull, memories I knew I didn't want to have but needed them nonetheless. Work, loud noises, panic. Crowds, pushing, shoving, violence, blood. Soldiers, guns, screaming, dying...black. I didn't want to push it any further. That was all I needed.  
I wanted to get up and look around, but when I tried to sit up all the blood rushed to my head and the room started spinning like crazy, then the pain and the spinning became suddenly overwhelming and I threw up. The most dangerous thing I could have possibly done right then was throwing up, I didn't have enough sustenance inside me to afford throwing up...but I couldn't control it. I felt a little better afterwards though, so I sat up slowly and looked around. I gazed around the room and could only think about how dull the room I was in was, high, grey, concrete walls and floor, large metal beams supporting the ceiling with cobwebs dangling from the high roof, glinting in the dull light coming through the big, dirty windows. It was the store warehouse, where all the old stock was kept, but now it was desolate and quiet with only a smattering of used tape and discarded boxes. Apparently the noise of my retching didn't go totally unnoticed. A shuffling sound came from just outside the door, and my blood ran cold, I'd seen pictures and videos on the news and the internet before it happened but I wasn't entirely sure about whether the stories were true or not. The noises became more and more clear, and a heavy feeling like a large weight had begun to form in my gut. This was probably the end. Then, the shuffling noise stopped, and for a glorious split second I thought whatever was making it had wandered off, but then my hope was shattered in a moment by loud crashing and clanging noises as the thing outside tried to make its way inside. Slowly resting my head on the floor again, I rolled away from the door onto my wound, causing a massive surge of pain to rush through my body and making me to gasp, but I ignored it. Laying with my head on the floor, listening to my death get closer and closer made me wonder whether the 29 years I'd spent on earth were really only going amount to this moment and lead me to a grim and undignified death. The final crash brought a further two bangs as the doors slammed against the concrete walls, echoing dauntingly through the massive building. I heard a low moaning and shuffling noise, as the thing got closer and closer I prayed for it to end quickly, holding happy thoughts of birds chirping and shit in my head. I opened my eyes briefly to take in the light once more, but in that second I was blinded, and I was struck by an epiphany;

I don't want to die yet.

I looked over at the floor next to me, and there was nothing I could defend myself with within immediate reaching distance, so I desperately clasped hold of a cardboard box and rolled swiftly onto my other side, only to come face to face with a dead, decomposing, but very much living corpse. It's matted brown hair hung limply around it's sunken and wrinkled face, providing a grotesque shadow across its face. It gnashed it's rancid, rotten mouth at me and without hesitation I rammed the box over its face in an attempt to give myself temporary cover. I flipped over onto my stomach, gasping and crawling around, feeling the floor in a mad bid to find a weapon before the beast could get its cardboard blindfold off. At last I spotted a small section of metal pipe that would be ideal for this type of hand-to-face combat, so I reached out and grabbed it. At the same time, it had freed itself and lunged at me, but I had squeezed my eyes shut and thrust the pipe into the air, only to hear a squelch and a crunch as the pipe had connected with the corpse's skull and embedded itself deep within its brain. Without opening my eyes, I felt the spray of cold, dead blood spurting onto my face and over my clothes, instinct told me to cover my wound further, so I flung my other hand across my body and pressed it against the wound to prevent any of this foreign blood coming into contact with it. With every ounce of my strength, I heaved the truly lifeless body from me, dragged myself behind some boxes in the corner for a certain degree of concealment, and wept for several hours until passing out again.

_**Hey guys, thanks for reading the first chapter of my story, I'd read a couple of Daryl Dixon Fanfics (yes this is eventually going to turn into that) and I just wanted to give it a go myself, hope you enjoyed it, any constructive critisism would be appreciated - Hannah**_


	2. Finding my feet

I woke up in the warehouse about a day later. I looked cautiously around the boxes to make sure that I was alone, and for the time being I was. Lifting my shirt, I looked down towards where I had been shot and I saw that the wound had started to close, but it sure as shit hadn't closed cleanly. I groaned at the sheer amount of effort I had to put into getting up, and I stood. I made my way over to the corpse I'd defended myself from the other day, and with a heavy sense of shame and revulsion I pulled the pipe out from its ruined eye socket. A trickle of blood ran down its face, and some more spurted weakly upwards, but other than that it remained still. I looked quickly away and threw up again, not because of dizziness or physical things, but the thought of killing a person made me hate myself. I looked around again, trying to find any better weapons I could use instead of a foot of lead pipe. Nothing. The thought of having to be that close to a corpse sent icy shivers down my spine, but I knew I couldn't stay there forever. I took a deep breath and headed for the door, only to get down the end of one corridor and be confronted by a pack of corpses, bumping into each other and moaning. I wasted no time in turning round and sprinting, despite the pain radiating from my side, in the other direction. I could hear them behind me, moaning louder and all stumbling over each other, the scent of my fear was driving them insane, but I knew I couldn't let them catch me. With the red hot tears streaming down my face, I worked my way through the labyrinth of corridors and rooms that I had known so well for the past few years and had most of my fondest memories in with people who I now suspected to be dead. The thought made me cry even harder, but I kept on running, my lungs were tight and I had a stitch, my throat was burning and my heart was thudding against the side of my ribcage at a million beats per second, like it would explode if I took one further step. I turned to see the pack still following me, so I began upturning desks and chairs in a desperate attempt to put some space between me and them. I finally turned one last corner, and on the verge of giving up I saw the light emanating from the massive sliding doors at the front of the shop. I thanked god and ran towards them, but they wouldn't open. I only had a few seconds before the pack was on me, so I charged as fast as I could at the doors and smashed through them. Mistake number two since I woke up. The glass had embedded itself into my arms and legs, not fully, but enough to sting like a bitch, but I couldn't focus on that, I had to see if any had worked its way to my wound. It hadn't, thank god, so I kept on running into a world that I didn't know anymore.

I must have run for about half an hour, because when I finally collapsed in a sweaty heap on the road my heart was pounding so hard I thought I was going to pass out...again. When I regained some of my breath, I took a cursory glance around. Surrounded by tall, thin houses, I must have run into an abandoned neighbourhood, as there was no sign of anyone or anything. No cars, no kids, no yappy little dogs... nothing. I stood up, suddenly very conscious of how vulnerable I was with only my small pipe and tattered store uniform, and I began my search for somewhere safe to hide out until all of this blew over...however long that was going to be. I made a beeline for the first house I looked at. A towering, slightly dilapidated, colonial style house, it's door slightly ajar and some of the wooden slats that were meant for effect were coming loose or had fallen off. I walked as briskly as I could towards it, limping slightly to try and ease the pain that came with every step, hand trying desperately to apply pressure to the wound that was still causing massive discomfort. I paused when I got to the door.

"The door's ajar." I thought. That meant there was nobody in there trying to survive, but it didn't rule out the possibility of the dead being there. I tightened my grip on the pipe until my knuckles were white, and I cautiously pushed the door open and stepped in. I stalked through all the rooms, combing every room and cupboard with hawk like ability, until finally I deduced that it was safe, and I began rearranging furniture and putting all the heavy stuff in front of the door in case of an attempted corpse attack. I spent about four laborious hours moving things before collapsing panting on the bed, searing pain coming from my side. I really wasn't sure how much longer I had before the dead- or an infection, took me. I frowned to myself and tried to push those thoughts out of my head before locking everything up as best as possible so that I could get a decent night's sleep.

I woke up the next morning with a headache that made me wish I'd been mauled to death in the night. As that wasn't the case, I swung my legs out of bed, and groggily got up and went to the window to see how many corpses there were milling around, waiting, watching me. Eight, Perfect. I could carry on working on my situation without drawing too much unnecessary attention to myself. I turned away from the window, keeping my eyes on it until the last second and refocused my attention on pooling my findings from the house. Whoever had lived there before the pandemic had cleaned the place out when they left, or maybe someone else had after the owners had moved on.

If they had moved on.

I went into one of the other bedrooms at the back of the house and had a look around. I took a few steps forward then noticed something distinctively odd about the floorboard. The one I was stood on was a lot springier than the others, and it creaked like a bitch. I knelt down, and took a look around, just to make sure it was safe to do so, then ripped back the rug. I slipped my hand under a crack between the board and the adjacent board, and pulled with all my strength, sending more agonising pain to my side. Disregarding this, I kept trying to yank it up,and with one final tug, the board came clean off. Underneath, there was a small wooden box with a chain around it and a large padlock.

"Dumbass." I thought. I wanted to get into that small, flimsy wooden box, and a chain wrapped around the outside wasn't going to stop me. I laid it on the ground next to the hole, and observed it for a few seconds, cocked my head slightly to view it from a different angle and in that moment several other thoughts shot through my head. Why had they hidden it there? What was it? Did they forget it, or was it meant to stay there? Regardless, I quickly raised my leg and forced my foot down through the box. A cracking noise, followed by a spray of wooden splinters over the floor and suddenly the contents of the box was revealed. A large black handle, attached to a long, thin, shining silver barrel. The gun wasn't cocked, so it wasn't an immediate danger to anyone. Another, smaller box inside it, but this one wasn't locked, so I picked it up and opened it carefully. Full of rounds, excellent, so I had some protection. I silently thanked the lucky stars for the unearthing of the gun, and carried on my search. The rest of the search didn't prove as fruitful; I found two tins of peas, a mouldy loaf of bread and a photo album. Just looking back on that photo album haunts me...I turned the first page and read the front cover.

"Truman famly foto album – Alfie age 3"

As soon as I read it, my heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. Underneath the untidy scrawl of red crayon was a small photo of a young boy, presumably Alfie. Dungarees bucket and spade, beach...he looked happy. He was a young, innocent and happy boy before it happened, and I had no way of knowing if he was still that way. My vision clouded, and tears began hitting the album. I put it back on the shelf I found it on, way up high so that it wouldn't be disturbed again. I remember feeling as though the boy's very happiness was inside it; I couldn't just leave it at the mercy of those creatures. I wiped my face clean and sniffed to clear the worst of my grief, and then moved on. I slipped downstairs and into the kitchen. It was in some ways more depressing than the world outside, I just stood there, imagining what the people who lived there were like. Ghosts of middle aged women and young, smiling children ran through the room, laughing and hugging, elderly men and women shuffled through, smiling at each other with twinkling eyes and laughing with the children who pranced round the room without a care in the world...the images were shaken out of my mind by a rattling at the window as a corpse tried to get in to me. I sighed and my shoulders slumped dejectedly. I slowly scanned the room for yet another weapon I could use, as I'd left the pipe upstairs, not that I wanted to put my life, yet again, in the hands of a small, blunt piece of metal. I looked to my right, and as I was on the verge of giving up and running to get the pipe, I saw it glinting in the corner of my eye. A short, thin hilt with glossy red decals and a knuckle duster attached to slightly curved 9 inch blade with one jagged edge. It was perfect and oh so beautiful in that moment. The corpse was still tapping and scratching profusely at the window, making a hideous and pitiful moaning noise. I edged closer and in one swift movement cracked the window open and plunged the blade into the side of its skull. More of its filthy blood spattered over my uniform and I exhaled deeply before holding my breath and ripping the knife out of its skull. It went limp and fell to the ground with a sickening thud, and I slowly reached out to close the window. I sat, shaking on the cold tiled floor and held my face in my trembling hands as I thought about what I had just done, hoping and praying for it to become easier.


	3. Visitors

I walked in from the back door and slammed it behind me, two rabbits dangling from a rope I had suspended on my arm, necks snapped. It wasn't an appetising dinner, but it was the best I could do. I had just lit the small gas campfire that I'd swiped from a camping store. Since the mains had gone out, the best I could do was a small gas campfire and a torch for when it got dark. I didn't mind.

It had been 13 months since I'd woken up in the department store, a frightened little kid compared to the girl cooking rabbit on a gas fire. I killed countless walkers after the one in the kitchen, and I hadn't batted an eyelid at most of them. I stopped looking at them like people, they were just disgusting things that wanted me dead, and the feeling was mutual. I had literally just put my knife down from poking the rabbit meat when I heard the noise, a loud persistent banging noise. Corpses don't make noises like that, which meant there was someone outside, desperate to get in. I picked up my knife and ran to the door, and then I leaned up to peer through the grubby peephole that had saved my ass countless times over the year that I spent there.

Three guys stood on the dirty porch; the one that was banging heavily on the door was wearing a worn and dirty sheriff's uniform, complete with hat. I hoped he had actually been a sheriff before the world turned to shit, as opposed to killing a sheriff and stealing his clothes. The other two guys weren't facing me, the skinny shorter one had a shotgun and dark black hair, and he was screaming about not being able to hold them off much longer, and he was right. The guy to the right of him was taller, burlier, wearing a wife beater and clutching a high powered crossbow to his face. He looked calm as shit, and I knew he was one to watch out for.

"Please, I know you can hear me, open the door and let us in, if you don't, you're killing us!" shouted the sheriff. Bastard, he's right, I can't leave them out there to die, they have to come in. I knew I was opening myself up for a world of trouble, but I didn't know exactly how much. I took a deep breath, and wrenched the door open.

"IN IN IN IN IN!" I shouted at them "GET IN OR I'LL LEAVE YOU TO THE CORPSES"

They piled in around me, crossbow guy stopped to take down a few more corpses until I grabbed the back of his top and yanked him inside.

"The fuck?!" he exclaimed. I noticed a distinctive southern accent, this guy was a definite redneck. He bristled with indignation that I pulled him away from his prey.

"Don't cuss at me y'damn redneck, I just saved your ass, now someone mind telling me what the hell you guys think you're doing leading a load of corpses to my fucking house?!" I exploded, getting up in his face, as corpses mauled at the doors, their unkempt nails scratched and scraped at my door and it made my stomach churn.

"Whoa, whoa, guys, let's show a little bit of gratitude to the lady." The sheriff said, putting his hand on the redneck's chest to stop him coming at me any further, as we were almost nose to nose by this point, and he looked pissed off.

"My name's Rick, Rick Grimes, this is Glen-"he motioned with his hand towards the short, skinny, Korean boy.

"And this is Daryl." He said, nodding his head towards the big redneck. Glen smiled at me, panting, clearly very grateful that I had let them in. Daryl just looked into me with a mixture of revulsion and disinterest. I squirmed a little under his gaze and motioned awkwardly towards the kitchen, where it would be distinctively quieter for us to iron out creases in the reasons for them intruding.

"Why are you here?" I asked a little defensively. "I can't afford to trust strangers, I don't have anything and I'm alone so I've got nothing worth taking." I told them hands up as if I were surrendering.

"Makes you think we can trust you?" quipped Daryl.

"Oh I don't know, maybe the fact y'just begged me to save your sorry asses" I snarled, this guy was really getting under my skin and he made me see red.

"Daryl, stop." Rick advised, and Daryl spat in contempt.

"We got separated from our group recently. We need a place to hole up, now I hate to ask but it seems that you wouldn't throw three fellow human beings out for the walkers to get. Please can we just stay here a few nights? We'll keep to ourselves and even lend a hand around the place." The sheriff pleaded. I wanted to help the two guys, the redneck on the other hand I would have happily handed over to the corpses, or the 'walkers' as they called them. Whatever they called those dirty, motherless meat sacks out there, I knew they were just as scared of them as I was. Rick was right, I wasn't about to turn them out on their asses, no matter how obviously ungrateful the redneck was.

"Spose so." I grunted. Then I remembered the gun in the box I'd found upstairs and panicked.  
"But don't you guys be going into my bedroom- nothing to worry about" I advised, putting my hand up again to calm Rick down as he'd bristled with concern at my statement.

"I just don't want some strangers going through my stuff is all. You take the second, third and fourth bedrooms, they're not big, but they don't need to be. We need someone to watch out for corpses too- the attic's perfect for that." I told them. I don't know why I was letting them stay in my house at all, but now I put it down to that fact I was still feeling guilty about the fact that it wasn't REALLY my house, I'd borrowed it from some family who were probably long dead by now. It sucked but it was the truth. I left the three dishevelled strangers in the kitchen so they could sort their affairs, maybe even plan to kill me. As soon as the thought came into my head I pushed it aside numbly, even though I hadn't survived for that long on my own just to be killed by some sheriff and his pet redneck, I sure as hell would rather have been killed by a foul-tempered redneck than a pack of hungry corpses. I pushed past the men, receiving a timid smile from Glen and a hateful glare and shoulder bump from Daryl. I thought it was a little unnecessary, considering the fact I was only 16- and a lot smaller than him. Without hesitation I ran upstairs to my bedroom and put the gun and ammo under my pillow, a weak hiding place, but it was okay. I hated Daryl, but I didn't mind them being there, and I definitely wasn't afraid of them.


	4. Flying the nest

_**Hi guys, I'm sorry there's a slight continuity error. I know about it, but because I'm very new to this site I'm very unaware of all the complications of editing so I didn't know how to go back and change it. In 'Waking up' I described Harper as 29 years old, but since then I felt to suit the storyline better, I'd adapt her age to 16 years old. Sorry for any confusion I caused, but I'm on top of things now, thanks.**__ -__**Hannah**_

Next morning I woke up after a dreamless sleep. Those were rare, so it was a complete treasure that I put down to the added security of having three guys in the house. I shook my head and ruffled my short, brown hair and stood up as straight as I could, then slumped back when it made me feel slightly sick. I put my hand over the scar that had long since formed over my bullet wound and pressed it. It twinged, but as I'd managed to survive the whole year with it, I figured there was nothing to be concerned about other than where my next meal was coming from and whether or not today would be the day my brains got scooped out my some disease ridden corpse. I deduced that the pangs I suffered from the scar were from the shards of bullet that I had left in the wound before it had closed up, pressing on my insides. I'd suffered falls and blows since then, so I really wasn't concerned at all. I looked around my measly bedroom, and signed because of how bare it looked. Due to the power outages there were no luxuries like iPods, televisions or even showers, so I just had to make do. Trust me, when you're stuck in those sorts of situations, you forget about your desire to listen to Green Day. Plus it was a constant reminder of who wasn't still alive, and it became like listening to a ghost for the first few days when the power was still on. I put on the oversized Guns N' Roses shirt I'd grabbed from a department store before it became overrun, and put on some tarnished black cut offs. I slipped downstairs to see whether the guys were still there. They were. Admittedly, I didn't want to become attached to them at all, I'd only known them for a day, but they were the first human contact I'd had since the pandemic, so even though they didn't know, I didn't really want them to leave. They were sat in what I can only assume was once the living room, the redneck on the rug was cleaning his crossbow with the utmost care, Glen sat on a small armchair with his head resting against the back of it, staring into a corner on the ceiling, mind a million miles away, but Rick was sat at the coffee table, examining a map and consulting with Daryl. Daryl saw me and disregarded me, then went back to cleaning his crossbow, whereas Rick gave me a half smile and invited me in to see what they were doing.

"Morning, sleep alright?" he enquired. I knew he was just asking, and wasn't really interested, but I didn't care, it was nice to have someone ask about me after so long.

"Yeah...fine thanks. What you guys looking at? I asked them, with a slight sting in my heart as I knew this meant they'd be leaving as soon as possible.

"Looking at a map of the area." Glenn piped up. He looked the sort of guy who wasn't usually given a second glance, so I looked at him and gave him a big smile. I don't know why I did it, but it felt good.

"I know the area really well, if there's anything you need don't hesitate to ask." I told them.

"We're fine." Said Daryl shortly. His arrogance wasn't even annoying me today, I just enjoyed their company.

"For now, but when the corpses start closing in on you..." I said to him, head cocked to the side with a twisted little smile and then I ran my finger across my throat for him to get the message. He just grunted and went back to his crossbow. Rick observed this and decided it would be best to move the conversation on rapidly.

"Anyway, we've been stranded and have to get back to our group, but we were saying that as we're so close to a shopping district we might head there first and get a few supplies. Is it overrun?" he looked at me hopefully, as if I would give him anything but bad news. I so wanted to tell him everything was alright, and it was perfectly safe because I liked him and Glenn so much, but I just couldn't lie to them either. Rick saw this in my expression, and before I'd opened my mouth to confirm his suspicion, he knew.

"Rick I'm sorry but it's been overrun for about a year now. And almost everything worth gathering is gone. There are no shops anymore for us to stock up from, I've been hunting rabbit for the past 6 months. I'm sorry." I said apologetically. He seemed to be okay with this, but understandably they were still a bit upset, and there was a moment of silence.

"Well...that settles it." Daryl said, breaking the short silence that had formed from my grave news. "We head back to the camp and tell the others it's time to move on." He informed them, standing up and loading his crossbow, ready to pick off any stray corpses in their way back to their camp. The other two quietly got up and Glen smiled sympathetically at me, as if he knew that I didn't want them to leave. Rick turned to me:

"Thank you for the hospitality." He said "If there's anything we can do before we leave, you name it." He looked at me kindly. The thought rushed through my head so quickly, and I didn't even have to think about it, I just couldn't face being alone again, it was cripplingly painful. The thought of them leaving already was crushing me, even Daryl, who I thoroughly disliked.

"I let you stay here for the night, please let me come with you." I blurted out. Well, it's what I meant to say, what I actually said was somewhere along the lines of:

"YOUSTAYEDPLEASEIWANNAGOTOO" I gabbled at them, which received a worried look from Rick and a look of disgusted confusion from Daryl. I thought about it and then repeated myself only slower.

"Sorry...I let you stay the night, now let me tag along with you...you have no idea how lonely it gets..."I added, in a secret bid to make them pity me and take me with them. Rick looked extremely thoughtful while staring into me with his hand on his hip, looking a little impatient. Daryl was shaking his head in disbelief and Glen was just watching the whole thing, face a blank canvas.

"You gotta understand something, we don't just go around picking up strangers, you've gotta earn your place, pull your weight around." He told me, as if I'd refuse upon hearing those terms. Maybe he hoped I would, but I wasn't prepared to give up that easily.

"I know. I'm an average hunter-"Daryl's scoff interrupted me, but I chose to ignore him. "I can hunt, I can gather, I'm fast on my feet and I'm just a natural born survivor. Please. Don't leave me here to die." I tried to appeal to Rick's humane side, the sheriff side.

"Listen girlie, we got ourselves a hunter, a runner and plenty of survivors, y'aint nothing special." Daryl remarked.

"Maybe not, but is that a reason to leave me out on my own? I'm 17 for cryin' out loud." I raised my voice and it got quite shrill as I did so, genuinely afraid they'd say no, but then Rick looked at me and asked

"What kinda weapons you been livin' with?" squinting at me from under his large rimmed hat.

"I found a revolver, a couple rounds and a bowie knife." I told him. I was honest enough about that, if I wanted to live with the guys, I had to be completely up front about everything, or they'd soon find out. Rick looked at Daryl, who just shrugged, then looked at Glenn who raised his eyebrows as if to say 'why not?' then his eyes returned to me and locked on mine.

"Okay. We'll let you tag along. So long as you don't try anything...funny..." he said warningly. I flashed him the biggest grin of my life and threw myself at him, catching him in a huge embrace, arms wrapped tightly around his chest, Daryl lifted his crossbow up as soon as I'd thrown myself at Rick, and pointed it right at my head, but I didn't even care, I was so overcome with happiness he could have shot me with it.

"Thank you so much." I breathed, as tears trickled down my face. "You won't regret it." I promised him, as sincerely as I could manage.

"Easy, now just go get your stuff and be back down here in 5 minutes, or we'll go without you." Rick said, smiling slightly, so I knew he didn't mean it. I flashed him another huge grin and ran upstairs as quickly as possible, not daring to take more than 5 minutes in case they weren't joking. I ran into my bedroom, grabbed my thin grey duvet and threw it on the floor. I then began throwing all of my worldly belongings onto it, my disused iPod, a couple of t-shirts, my gun and ammo and then a lighter. I had a small medi-kit, so that went in there as well and then I turned to face the shelves. I looked right to the top shelf and wondered. I hadn't even thought about it in 13 months. I reached upwards and went on my tiptoes as far as possible, until a voice startled me, causing me to lose my balance and fall.

"Nasty bite, where'd you get that?" came the familiar southern accent, I'd fallen right onto my duvet, so I had a gun poking me in the ass, and I was praying that a needle from the kit hadn't found its way up there too. I looked at Daryl, and it must have been a truly pitiful sight, a young girl sprawled over the floor, in a pile of her things with a hurt expression from where the gun was poking me, mixed with a slight look of shame about the wound he had seen as my shirt rode up from the reaching. He walked over and offered me his hand and I frowned at him and clasped it as he hoisted me up.

"Work." I grunted. I didn't want him to think I was soft, or I knew he'd bully me until one of us died.

"Hell d'you work, shootin' range or somethin?" He jeered, not knowing the memories brought a certain amount of pain back to me. The day I was shot was the last day I saw my family alive and well, but I don't like to dwell on that too much.

"Department store." I retorted, not wanting to go into the details. He shook his head in disbelief and skulked off. I waited for him to come back and say something condescending, but he didn't return, so I carried on packing. I eventually tied up the corners of the duvet and poked a large stick through them so I could carry them like a cliché on my shoulder. I went downstairs like this and Rick saw, laughing in disbelief as we went. I went to the kitchen and grabbed my knife off the side, still as perfect as the day I found it. It was beautiful then, so I liked to keep it in good condition, and I bade my final farewells to the house I'd recovered in. We reconvened in the hallway, clutching our weapons, preparing to step back into the world of corpses.

"You ready, gunshot?" Daryl asked me. Apparently I'd been given a cruel new nickname, but I chose to ignore him for now. I just looked him in the eye and nodded and then Daryl, Glenn, Rick and I burst through the door, adrenaline higher than a squirrel on crack.


	5. Meeting the family

We must have walked for about 3 hours, because by that point I was tired and my side started to twinge. The others must have noticed from the way I grimaced and clutched at my side, because it didn't take long for me to become the butt end of Daryl's jokes.

"You gotta stitch there, gunshot?" He taunted. "Slowin' us all down." He then went on to grumble. Asswipe. I wasn't going to take quips like that from a man like Daryl, so I ignored him and carried on walking, but I picked my pace just in case they thought what he said, and I felt slightly guilty about risking their lives by being slow. It wasn't safe to be out at night. Those things seemed to be more active at night, maybe the darkness was easier on their rotting eyes, maybe they just knew that we couldn't see them as well. Whatever the reason, you needed to avoid going out at night.

"Right, it's getting dark but we're only a short distance from camp, about half hour. We should make it before nightfall." Rick informed me. I don't know whether he didn't see the pain I was in, maybe it was easier for him to ignore it. There were no certainties about anything, and soon, I'd learned to stop caring. Daryl and Rick walked in silence, slightly ahead of Glen and me, as I had slowed down again. Glenn turned to me as we walked.

"So, you were alone...where were your group?" he inquired, innocently enough. I looked at him for a few minutes and I deduced that he wouldn't be able to survive on his own for longer than a week.

"Well...I wasn't with a group." I explained as simply as possible. "It was just me in that house for a year. I got by okay." I told him, mainly so he wouldn't feel sorry for me. I didn't want Glenn to feel bad for me. He just nodded and we carried on walking.

About ten minutes later, as the sun had started to hide behind the tall fern trees that lined the abandoned highway we marched down, cars littering our path and scraps of the dead lay in the driver and passenger seats, the not so distant horizon brought us a small glow of fire, with figures and shadows dancing round the flickering light. The men immediately broke into a run, desperate to rejoin their friends and family. Glenn however, hung back to keep me company as he'd picked up on my reluctance to run.

"Listen, Daryl can be an asshole, but he's crucial to our group's survival. Try not to take anything he says too personally, he's a bit of a recluse and doesn't know how to talk to people well." He tried to explain to me, but it was nothing I hadn't figured out before. I was just going to have to get used to Daryl Dixon being a bastard. We finally arrived at the camp about two minutes after the two men, Glenn carried on walking into the arms of a thin, brown haired woman who grinned hugely at him when he got back. Rick was with a tall, brunette and a young boy, presumably his wife and son, and Daryl just stalked off into his single tent. I just stood at the side looking awkward until Rick introduced me to everyone.

"Everyone, this is...what is your name?" He looked at me frowning. It had been so long since I'd even said my name, I hadn't even thought about it for so long, it took a second or two before I could answer him.

"Harper." I told them "My name's Harper..." then I trailed off, because I well and truly had forgotten my surname. I felt a wave of sadness wash over me in that moment, as I realised I'd completely forgotten who I was. I cast an eye over the rest of the group. A couple of elderly men, a huge black guy, a couple of dishevelled blonde women, a timid grey haired and what I assumed was her equally afraid daughter, and a large, surly black haired man. The sight of all of these complete strangers filled me with a warmer feeling than the one I experienced just seconds before, and I knew that I wasn't the only one who'd forgotten myself. This happy feeling of belonging didn't last long, as a low moan came from the trees at the edge of the camp, a couple of the women gasped and jumped towards Rick and the black haired man, but Daryl and the black guy moved swiftly towards it and silenced it before any of us had a chance to see it.

"It's getting pretty late now, introductions should wait til morning." Rick advised, putting an arm round his wife and a hand on his son's head. "Time to rest up for now. Daryl, T-Dog, take first watch." He addressed the redneck and the black guy, with a definite air of authority that the others just accepted.

"Shane and I will take over in a few hours time." He said, and the surly black haired man nodded at him. Then the group dissolved, and everybody went back into their own tents or cars for the night. I stood there, mulling over the events of the evening in my head, until a voice broke through my thoughts and brought me crashing back to earth.

"Hey gunshot, di'nt ya hear him, he said sleep." Came the southern accent. He smirked at his own wit, I once again ignored it and pretended he hadn't called me 'gunshot'. I just looked at him and gave him the finger, then went about balling my duvet up with my stuff inside it to use as a pillow next to the fire, taking my knife out and clutching it as I did so. Not a minute after I put my head on the makeshift pillow, his voice rang out again.

"You stupid or somethin', you can't stay out here, there are walkers!" Daryl growled at me, taking a step towards me. T-Dog put his hand out to stop him.

"Hey man, she don't have anywhere to sleep." He looked at me. "C'mon, I'll go see if Dale can take you for tonight." He said to me warmly. "Daryl, you can cover for a minute, yeah?" he turned to ask the redneck. He just grunted in response and turned his back on us, hitching his precious crossbow higher up to his face so he was ready for whatever dark creatures came lurching from the forest. T-dog walked me over to the large, rusting RV that was resting in the corner of the camp. He tapped on the door a few times.

"Dale? Dale man, you up?" he called in to the towering vehicle. "Hey Dale, need you to take care of this one for tonight." He informed him through the flimsy door. Suddenly, a scratching and rustling noise came from behind the door, as Dale put the keys in the door and turned them a couple of times. Several clicking noises later the door opened, and the ground T-Dog and I were stood on was engulfed in a pool of yellow light from the RV. One of the elderly men stepped into the doorway. He had a white beard, lined at the bottom with grey hairs he wore a shirt I can only describe as 'loud', very Hawaiian with palm trees all over it and a straw hat. His appearance was very casual considering the situation we were in, but I wasn't about to judge him on that as he was opening up his home to me. He smiled at me and T-Dog before speaking.

"Yeah, that's no problem, might be a bit crowded, what with there being three of us but I'm sure we'll get by for tonight." He told me, still smiling. Dale just had one of those faces that you couldn't help but trust, and I stepped in, giving T-Dog a brief, timid smile to let him know it was okay for him to leave. I didn't see him get back to Daryl, as Dale had shut and locked the door behind me before I got a chance to wave goodbye to the nice black man who had shown an interest in my wellbeing. I turned to look at the inside of the RV. A confined luxury at best, fairly narrow, shabby upholstery and that familiar smell that accompanies hospitals, the sterilised and clean smell that filled my nostrils was sort of comforting though. It helped to know that they were prepared to a certain degree.

"It's not much" Dale said, furrowing his eyebrows and squinting "But it's home now." He said I smiled at him to let him know I was grateful.

"Thanks, I've been holed up in a house on my own for the last year." I said, frowning slightly, remembering how lonely I was in the tall, colonial house. "Too many spare rooms." I told him, totally honestly.

"All on your own?" He asked, looking at me with a pained mixture of pity and disbelief. I hated him looking at me like that, I hated any of them looking at me like that. I didn't want to be 'that kid' the one that was left orphaned and needed sympathy, I'd moved on from that, I just wanted to live as normal a life as I could. So I grinned, once again at Dale and spun him a line.

"Being alone isn't a new thing for me, I'm okay with it. I'd much rather stay here with you people though." I registered his reaction, the same as before, so I quickly moved the subject on.

"The redneck." I said shortly. Dale's whole demeanour changed and a shadow of a smile flickered across his wrinkled face. "Who shoved a stick up his ass?" I grumbled, remembering his not so fond nickname for me.

"That's just Daryl. I don't really know anything about him- other than his brother. Went out with T-Dog, Glenn and Rick couple days back. Didn't come back. Other than that, he's got no family...likes to keep himself to himself mostly..." he trailed off. I instantly felt a bit more sympathy towards Daryl, he and I were in the same boat, what with neither of us having families anymore. Daryl was one of the many things I wanted to ask about, say to them, and tell them...I wanted to help them. I looked at Dale for a few seconds and then down at my tatty duvet. I reached down and opened it, fumbling around in there for a few seconds for something I wanted to give to him. After digging around for a few seconds, I found the small, cool, metal tin I had been searching for. I pulled it out and gave the tarnished little box with the big, red cross on it to Dale. He looked confused for a few seconds then it dawned on him what I was offering him.

"Take it." I ordered him in a slightly stern voice. "Anything to help the group, right?" I said. He looked at me gratefully and took it from me.

"Thanks Harper." Said the old man sitting before me, who had welcomed me into their group more than any other. The bathroom door opened, and a second elderly man stepped out. He looked a bit like Dale, only taller, with brilliant white hair and a snowy, bushy beard. He looked confused for a moment, probably at my presence and then spoke.

"Evening ma'am." He had a low, southern accent, but not harsh like Daryl's. It was smoother, and a lot more comforting. "The name's Herschel." He extended his old, creased hand for me to shake. I grasped it firmly and shook, looking him in the eye as I did so.

"Harper." I replied, letting his hand go. "I have so many questions, but...now isn't the time." I sighed, the scar throbbing as I said so. I just needed so sleep through the pain, which usually got rid of it for a while. The two men observed me as I moved my hand to my side, and exhaled deeply, puffing my cheeks out as I did so.

"You keep putting your hand on your side...why is that?" Dale enquired with that frowning face he pulled so frequently around me. I saw I couldn't hide it from everyone, so I knew I had to reveal what had happened all that time ago in the warehouse. I lifted my shirt up a small way, just enough for them to see the extent of the wound. A bright pink bulge of skin on my side, about 2 and a half inches in diameter, the skin on it was raised about 8mm and it appeared to strain itself over the hole that was underneath the hole that had partially healed. It had veins of bright pink skin around it, equally as raised but infinitely thinner, like lightning bolts striking out from the centre of the pain.

"You were bitten?" Dale asked slowly. I shook my head and ran two fingers gently over it.

"Gunshot." I breathed, looking back up at Dale. "It's nothing to worry about. It was over a year ago." I told him, trying to reassure them that I was okay. Herschel bent down to take a look at it.

"It's okay. I was a vet...I can help you, you know." Herschel informed me, peering knowledgably at my scar. He raised his hand to it and prodded it gently and in response I winced like a wounded child. He continued to examine it for a few minutes, then stood up straight and looked me in the face.

"Well, it seems to me that the flesh has formed over the hole quite thick, meaning that the bullet's still in there somewhere, probably all broken up. It ain't doing any harm, best to just leave it be." He deduced kindly. I nodded at him understandingly, yet suddenly overwhelmed by how tired I was. Looking around the ramshackle RV I could see which beds were taken up by Dale and Herschel, so I gave them both a final smile and a nod, gathered my belongings (leaving the medi-kit on the table for Dale to store) and headed over to the final, smallest bed. I threw my duvet on the bed, leaned back and let the events of the day wash out of my head, cleansing my mind of thoughts about Daryl, corpses and the bullet that was lodged in my side.


	6. Proving my place

The sunrise came and with it, a new start. I sat up in my tiny bed. Looking around the RV, I started smiling, because it confirmed my suspicion that I wasn't dreaming, and that I was really taken in by some kind, caring...befuddling strangers. Peering around the corner of the big tan cupboard that obstructed the rest of the RV from my view, I saw that I was the only person inside, and everyone else had gone elsewhere. For a few seconds I panicked, not sure whether they'd left and abandoned me, then I realised they would have taken the RV. I stood up fully and crossed to the door. I took a deep breath, pulled the door open and stepped out into the group of lonely wandering survivors. As soon as I'd opened the door, the three people that remained in the camp turned and just...stared at me. Two were women whom I hadn't met before, and the other, much to my disappointment, was Daryl. It looked like he felt exactly the same way about me, as he took one look at me, huffed and stalked off in the other direction with his crossbow, like a petulant child...with a crossbow. As soon as he'd skulked off, one of the women came up to me. I recognised her straight away- she was Rick's wife, but the other woman was totally unfamiliar to me. Rick's wife came over to me, and before I'd got any words out of my mouth, she'd extended her arms and wrapped herself around me, pulling me into a massive hug.

"Hi, my name's Lori, I'm Rick's wife and Carl's mom-"she released me and motioned with one hand towards the young boy who she'd been clasping to her side for the entire time I'd known them. He looked up at me and smiled timidly.

"Hey." He said, in a voice not much louder than a whisper. I returned his smile and acknowledged him with a little wave of my hand. Carl gazed up at me then went round the back of Lori and off into the camp, meanwhile, Lori watched him wander off with the beady eye of a falcon. She turned back to me and smiled wearily.

"Listen...Herschel told us about your side." She motioned towards my scar. "So, I'm not expecting you to do any hunting or gathering...or lifting..." she smiled at me, almost as though she were expecting me to be grateful for the fact that she just insulted me, whether she realised it or not.

"You can help Carol and I with the washing and cooking if you don't mind." She looked me up and down one last time, then she smiled at me and started walking over to a small, isolated creek just on the other side of the trees that Glenn and Rick had told me about on the walk here, beckoning me to follow her. It's where the women did all the washing, cleaning and occasionally fishing, but that was only when Daryl hadn't managed to bring anything back from the forest that he'd tracked and killed...which apparently was rare.

I pulled away from her slightly.

"Actually Lori, I thought I might try my hand at hunting here." I told her, squinting round at the small forest. "I did survive on my own all that time after all, and it definitely wasn't on take outs and pizzas." True, the sass that I gave her didn't help things, but I needed to get my point across before I ended up wasting my time floating around like a lemon washing and baking fairy cakes with Carol. She seemed nice enough from what I'd heard from Dale and Herschel, scared woman with an abusive husband and a kid...not the sort of person I really want to get tangled up with. Lori frowned at my statement, and then shook her head vigorously.

"No, no Harper, I can't let you do that, sorry but you're just not a hunter, leave that to Daryl." She tried to tell me. Just hearing her say that a redneck could do better than me made my blood boil, as if she'd stuck me right in a kettle. I know she'd shown me hospitality, but I wasn't about to be walked on by a glorified dishwasher.

"No, Lori, you listen to me. You're not my mother, I'm not your problem, I'm not anybody's problem, I can hunt just as well as Daryl can, if not better, how the hell do you think I survived on my own out there, by washing dishes and cleaning towels?!" I spat at her, spinning round so I didn't have to look at her, not even caring about how rude it seemed. I needed to be needed in the group, and hunting was my best way of achieving that. After my outburst I felt a lot better, and I'd calmed considerably down, I turned back to her, to see her standing there with a wounded expression. I immediately felt guilty. I didn't feel guilty because I'd hurt Lori's feelings, I felt guilty because I'd snapped at Rick's wife, I felt as though I'd snapped at part of Rick, the man who'd taken me into his group, a group so tightly knit, a group whose lives and fates were bound so tightly together it was almost like family. I didn't like that feeling. I looked Lori in the eyes and went to apologise.

"Lori, I'm sorry I snapped at you like that, I'm sure- no I know- what you do is extremely important to the group. I just don't think I can do it. I know I'd be a better asset to your group if my skills were used elsewhere, namely out in the forest." I told her. She blinked and sniffed, but instead of unleashing her full fury on me, she just smiled.

"That's okay. I understand. You're tired-"she began, but not before I cut her off again.

"Lori, I'm not tired. Please listen to me, if you don't I'll go anyway. I don't want to be a pain in the group, especially not on my first day, I want to help you." I pleaded. She sighed impatiently, crossed her arms then shrugged.

"Okay. I'll give you today to come back with something. If you can't do it, then tomorrow I expect you to join the rest of the women at the creek. It's not as bad as it sounds." She added with a slightly offended expression, which made me feel even guiltier, but I couldn't concentrate on that. I was overjoyed that she was giving me a chance to prove myself to them. I grinned as widely as I could and threw myself around her, just as I had done with her husband the day before. I finally released her, and even she couldn't help but smile at me, as I ran back into the RV to collect my knife. I dashed into the RV and hopped up the steps in a single leap, narrowly avoiding sending Dale flying into the bathroom.

"Whoa, hey, watch it there...you're in a hurry!" he laughed at me, I spun round breathlessly.

"Sorry!" I wheezed at him. It was already 11am, and Lori had only given me a day, so every minute I was still at the camp was a minute I could have spent catching dinner. I cooled off for a minute after Dale had waved me away, and tried to locate my knife. I panicked when I couldn't find it, but after a minute or two of searching it surfaced under my bed. I then made a mental note to never sleep with my knife on my bed. I stored the knife in my waistband and headed out into the heavily covered woodland to prove my worth to not just Lori, but the group as well.

I must have been trekking the dense undergrowth for any signs of life for the best part of an hour. Most other people would have been on the verge of giving up, but not me, I had something to prove. I followed some tracks from a small animal, some sort of racoon, for about 20 minutes before the trail went cold and I returned to blindly hunting again. For someone who had a screaming match with Lori earlier about how good I was, I sure as shit sucked at hunting that day. Suddenly I stopped and had to be as silent as possible. A noise. A noise when you're out in the wild like I was at that moment could mean one thing- dinner. The only thing is it wasn't necessarily you who'd be doing the hunting. I crouched, trying to conceal myself as best as possible from whatever it was that had made the sound and I waited.

The noise made a dash in the opposite direction so I ran off in hot pursuit of it, dashing and leaping over roots and dead, rotting trees. Sweat was pouring down my face from the sun that came pouring down through the canopy roof in a burning beam of unforgiving heat, and I was getting cut from the razor sharp tree branches that were whipping against my face, slashing my skin as I moved stealthily through the bright foliage. Suddenly, my instincts kicked in and I came to an abrupt halt. There it was, about 8 metres ahead of me. A racoon, feasting on some leaves and glimmering berries. I stalked through the undergrowth for about 3 seconds, until I was hurled noisily off my feet by something that definitely wasn't human and it definitely wasn't an animal.


	7. Conflict resolution

"MOTHERFUCKER" I shouted, as I clasped the head of some gnashing, grotesque corpse, mere inches away from making my face his main course. I lashed out with my legs at the same time, like a kangaroo kick, trying to get some distance between me and the corpse. It didn't work, so I tried again, only the second time I used one leg, but unfortunately my leg went straight through the creature's stomach and I saw it come out the other side, covered in glistening, black guts. Whatever it was inside me that didn't want to die burst out through the quiet, reclusive Harper and took over. I felt it taking over my entire being, filling my limbs with a hot fire, pushing me, forcing me, making me angry. I grabbed the corpse by the skull and copied its face movements, gnashing and growling along with it in a mad frenzy, its greasy, limp hair dangling over my face, shrouding us both from the rest of the world, shielding me from the light, keeping me locked in battle with this she-demon.

I reached down to my waistband and in one swift movement, ripped the knife from my waist and thrust it up through the chin on the corpse, driving it and forcing it through its brain, spraying myself with the cold blood that once kept this person alive. I gasped several times and rolled it off me, breathing heavily, listening to the blood rush around my head. I realised it was the first time I'd been in real danger for the past year. I rocked forward onto my scraped and muddy knees, thanking god that I was still alive, until I was hit, and winded by yet another corpse. It hit me at an angle, and we both rolled off the bank we were stood on the edge of, crashing down through the undergrowth, demolishing trees and plants as we tumbled. This one was bigger than the last, this one was a man. It came crashing down on top of me, forcing me further into the dirt, the sheer dead weight of it keeping me from defending myself and I felt it get closer and closer to digging its jagged teeth into the skin on my throat, ending me for sure. I tried to free my hand to push it away, but it was trapped beneath me. I shut my eyes and just twitched violently in a feeble attempt to throw it off, waiting for my inevitable death to come.

Just as I was preparing for the worst, a rush of air whipped over my face, and the corpse that had been on top of me had an arrow going through its thick skull, millimetres from my face. I stared at it, eyes wide, both terrified of the arrow that nearly killed me and grateful that it hit its intended target. I swivelled my head round to see Daryl standing up on the bank, crossbow held to his face.

Maybe it didn't hit its intended target then.

He jumped down the side of the bank and looked at me for a minute, as if observing me beneath the zombie, a million thoughts probably racing through his dense head.

"The hell Gunshot, you tryin' a get yourself killed or what?" He exclaimed, scowling at me as he insulted me. I dropped my head back onto the earth and laughed throatily.

"Yeah funny, redneck, wanna get this fat bastard off me?" I spat the question at him. He laughed cruelly at me before throwing several colourful phrases in my direction. Eventually he looked at me.

"I dunno, what was that you were callin' me? Redneck was it?" he sniped, leaning down and getting right up in my face. I was furious by this point that he wouldn't help me up, so I was going to have a full on argument with him, corpse or no corpse in between us.

"I dunno redneck, what was that you were calling me? Gunshot was it? Name calling isn't nice is it redneck?!" I could see this was getting him really mad, as he got up and spat on the corpse, probably trying to get me instead. He was ragingly angry, and as he was the one with the crossbow and I wasn't, I figured I should try to stay on his good side.

"Daryl." I called out to him. "Daryl I'm sorry I called you that, please can you help me up?" I asked quietly. It hurt to be apologising, but at the same time it felt good taking the moral high ground. He turned to look at me, walked over and kicked the corpse off me. I inhaled deeply when he did it, as the weight had been restricting my ribcage, and I coughed a few times before rolling onto my front and leaping up. I wandered slowly over to Daryl, who was still sulking.

"Thanks...for you know. The arrow." I muttered. He just grunted in acknowledgement.

"What were you doin' out here anyway?" he inquired. "You ain't no hunter." He told me. That annoyed me a little bit, but I didn't want to enrage him again. Instead I wandered over to the first corpse, bent down and ripped my knife from its skull. I stood up straight and blinked at him.

"Showing Lori I can hunt, believe it or not." I said. He scoffed at me.

"Yeah, hilarious, well how come I survived alone for a year damn it, why won't people believe me?!" I raged. I heard a hooting in the trees and looked up quickly. An owl nestled in the trees, so I snatched Daryl's crossbow from him and quickly aimed at the owl. I pulled the trigger and the owl tumbled to the earth, feathers askew and fluttering along behind it, leaving a brown trail in the sky that gently fluttered down to join its owner. Daryl looked at me with disbelief.

"Tell me you di'nt just do that." He snarled, aghast that I touched his weapon. I just threw it back to him, picked up my owl and turned away.

"YOU CAN'T JUST WALK AWAY FROM ME!" Daryl shouted, fuming at my audacity. I turned back to him, exasperated at his stupidity.

"YOU THINK IT'S ALL ABOUT DOING IT ON YOUR OWN? YOU THINK NOBODY CAN TOUCH YOUR STUFF OR DO WHAT YOU CAN DO? WELL HERE'S A NEWSFLASH, I CAN HUNT, YOU WON'T SHARE WEAPONS? WELL I DO, HERE, TAKE MY KNIFE!" I screamed at him, turning red and throwing him my knife. He looked down at the knife in his hand with confusion and bewilderment.

"I DON'T WANT YOUR DAMN KNIFE, BITCH." He shouted, throwing it back to me. "You don't seem to like me very much and I sure as shit wanna know why." He told me, stepping closer to me quickly, holding his crossbow up as he moved closer. I predicted he'd do this so I raised my knife to his throat as he held his crossbow to my face so that the two of us were locked together, on the end of each other's deadly defenders. We stood there for mere seconds, but it felt like hours, panting heavily, arms holding our weapons firmly against the other person. Finally I broke the silence and threatened him.

"Go on y'fuckin' redneck, I'll slit your damn throat faster than your cousin's panties can hit the floor." He really didn't like that, and he pushed the crossbow into my head just enough to hurt, but not enough to make me bleed. In that moment I realised the only way I was going to get out of this alive would be to back down in the face of Daryl Dixon. I slowly retracted my arm and put my knife in my waistband before holding up my hands in surrender. He just spat on the ground and prowled off, leaving me in the pool of sunlight, with two dead corpses and an adrenaline rush so high I thought my heart was about to give out. I searched the corpses for useful items and found nothing, so I climbed back up the bank in pursuit of the man who had just held a high powered crossbow to my head.

After 4 more hours of hunting, I had caught 3 racoons and a rabbit so I decided it was time to head back to the camp. I jogged the three miles I'd put between myself and the camp, and just as my side was beginning to sting I arrived back at the warm glow of the fire that marked the centre point of the camp. Daryl, Carol and Lori were all sat in the middle next to the fire, doing small individual tasks that meant they could relax as much as possible before going to sleep. Daryl glanced up at me and then went quickly back to fiddling with his bow on his own, on the other side of the fire. The others smiled at me, so thankfully I assumed that he hadn't told them about our little confrontation in the forest. I walked up to Lori and dumped the animals I'd caught down in front of her. She gasped and moved away a few feet.

"Whoa, okay Harper, I get it, you can hunt, don't have to throw them in my face...literally!" she said, squirming. I looked at her sheepishly and picked them up again. I wandered around the fire, wondering where I could sit where the others couldn't see me. Yes I could hunt, but I didn't know how to skin or prepare the animals, and I wasn't about to admit to that either. I picked up the rabbit and twirled it slowly in my hand, knife hovering a few centimetres above it. I rocked the rabbit back and forth for a little while, putting off plunging the knife in wrong and ruining it. Unbeknownst to me, Daryl was watching me do this out of the corner of his eye, and it was pissing him off.

"C'mere." He ordered me. I looked up at him as if he'd gone crazy and he looked quizzically back as if I were stupid.

"Earth to Harper... get your ass over here." He said again. I didn't want to make him even angrier, so I went over to him, dragging the animals along behind me. I plonked myself down in front of Daryl, watching him intently to ensure he didn't try and stab me out of resentment or anything. He noticed this and spoke quietly.

"I ain't gonna kill you, if that's what y'think." He muttered to me through the wet, slicing noise the knife he was holding was making against the tender flesh of the rabbit. I looked up at him guiltily.

"Mmm. I wanted to apologise again...properly. No gimmicks, no name calling...I'm sorry, and thanks for taking down the corpse for me. I'd be dead if you hadn't come along when you did." I murmured to him. He looked me in the eye, grunted and nodded, but kept skinning the rabbit.

"You watchin' this?" he asked me, motioning with the knife towards the dead bunny in his blood soaked hand. He must have seen my dazed and tired expression, because he didn't seem annoyed that I wasn't watching or paying attention. I don't know whether he knew how tiring it was, coming into a new group and mucking in straight away...but I couldn't complain, they'd accepted me. He looked me up and down as he finished up skinning the animals. I won't lie, it was terrifying how proficient he was at doing it. He threw the knife down and wiped his bloodied hand on my shoulder before strolling off to his own tent. I watched the guy until he zipped his tent back up, making sure he wouldn't resurface again for a while. I sniffed my blood soaked shoulder and got up.

"I'm gonna...uhh..." I said to Lori and Carol, indicating to the RV with my thumb. They nodded at me and I walked over to my mobile home. I leapt up the steps and once again nearly crashed straight into Dale, who was arranging the dry food store.

"Hold up!" he said, holding his hands up to stop me. I looked at him sheepishly as that was the second time I'd done it to him.

"I'm gonna lay down a few ground rules...firstly, careful when coming into the RV, and second..." he paused and looked me up and down, eyes hovering on my bloodied shoulder, muddy, sweat streaked face and scraped knees.

"Take care of yourself." He warned me. I could understand his concern, I looked a real mess. I nodded at him and sighed, before moving off to my corner of the RV where I drifted up into a nightmare spattered sleep.

_**I'm truly overwhelmed by the number of people who have already read my story after only a few days. 118 may not seem a lot to some people, but I'm just so grateful that you've taken the time to read my fanfic, it really means a lot. Thank you so much, and I promise it's beginning to live up to the title, just you guys wait and see!**_** -Hannah**


	8. Taking the high ground

Awoken, at about 3am by the stench of rotting, dead flesh. A corpse had broken into the RV, and I was so intoxicated by fatigue that I slept through the break in. I woke up, bedding soaked to the mattress in fear as a skinny, decomposing hunk of flesh stumbling towards my bed, possessed by its innate desire to sink its sharp teeth into my tender, living skin. I kicked out at it, hoping to buy myself some time before it could act upon its instincts to eat me. I sprawled in my bed in a blind panic, kicking and punching at the corpse, hoping that one of my kicks would land on its target and cause some lasting, debilitating damage. Alas, this wasn't the case. I hoped that someone from the camp would leap into the RV and plunge a knife deep into the back of its brittle skull, but the creature kept coming...and nobody else came.

I was fending off its scraping, biting teeth, holding it's skull between my fingers, its arms waving around at me as if it were trying to pull me into a fatal cuddle. I was fighting it off as hard as I could, rapidly losing energy and will to fight...then I remembered the revolver I'd kept in perfect condition all these months but never fired. I darted my eyes around my little cabin, desperate to find the gun. I spotted it out of the corner of my eye, and after giving the stinking corpse a final shove in the chest, I spun round and picked up the revolver. In one fluidic motion I cocked the shining, silver firearm and fired. It hit the corpse square between the eyes, and it crumpled to its knees. It took me a few seconds to compose myself and get used to the feel of the gun in my hand, but when I did I had a massive dropping sensation in my stomach.

Dale.

"Dale?" I said, loudly. I looked around the RV. He was the guy who took me in and gave me a place to stay, I had to know he was okay. I looked further around the RV and saw no sign of him. I wrenched the door of the vehicle open and leaned out.

"DALE!" I shouted, before realising the horror that was unfurling in front of me. Chaos, sheer, pure chaos. People running around, guns firing, women and children being chased by corpses. I looked to my right just in time to see Carl being chased by a tall red headed corpse, one arm definitely dislocated, trailing along behind it like a macabre, broken marionette. I grabbed a handful of ammo from my bedside cabinet and quickly shot down the beast chasing Carl. He turned to me, tears running down his face and ran straight for me, sobbing for his mother as he did so. When he was about 6 feet away from me he paused and pointed to the space to the left of me, screaming incoherently. I whipped round and saw the reanimated body of a soldier running into me. I kicked it in the stomach and it stumbled backwards, leaving me enough time to aim for its temple and shoot. It, like the one that had attacked me in my bed, slumped and moved no more.

Carl continued his run towards me, still crying but the tears had dried up, now reduced to making dry sobbing noises. I held out my arm for him to grab and pulled him into the RV, where I then slammed the door, sealing him inside out of immediate danger. I returned my eyes to the scene that was still playing out in front of me, T-Dog and Shane back to back in a group of corpses, fighting them off with two large knives and baseball bats, Rick was bundling Lori into the back of a car and locking her in before a corpse could claim her and Carol was running round screaming for her daughter, Sophia, who had long since turned into one of them, now hunting down the people she once called her friends. I couldn't bear to watch and I still hadn't seen a glimpse of Dale in all the confusion. Staggering out into the hysteria, tears streaming down my face, I was still calling out for Dale.

"DALE!" I sobbed, trying desperately to find my friend, spinning round and round, trying to make sense of the chaos ensuing around me.

"HEY GUNSHOT, GET YOUR ASS UP HERE OR I'LL PUT AN ARROW IN YOUR DAMN SKULL" came the gruff southern accent that I, for once was so relieved to hear. I turned sharply to the source of the voice, but I couldn't find it, until it rang out again.

"YOU FUCKIN' STUPID, I SAID GET UP HERE!" he said again. I looked up towards the high roof of the RV and saw Daryl and Dale taking refuge on top. I didn't need telling a third time. After shooting another corpse in the head, I made a beeline for the door of the RV and wrenched it open. Carl, who was still inside, screamed a little bit at this, but then calmed significantly down when he saw it was me. I looked up to see if there was inside access to the roof, and lo and behold there was.

"Carl, I'm gonna need you to unlock that hatch-"I told him, pointing to the large yellow dome. He followed my finger with his eyes and nodded tearfully.

"Then climb onto the roof. Daryl and Dale are up there, it's safe." I assured him. He didn't look overtly convinced so I looked him straight in the eye.

"Hey. Would I lie to you?" I asked him, not breaking eye contact. That seemed to reassure him, and I then pulled him into a short hug before lifting him with both arms up towards the roof hatch. It took about 20 seconds for him to get through the first 2 out of 4 locks, and as soon as he'd finished the first 2 locks, a corpse burst in through the door of the RV, about a metre from where I was holding Carl. He looked down and started screaming and I had to shut him up before he attracted any more our way.

"CARL SHUT UP AND IGNORE IT, I'VE GOT IT!" I screamed back at him. The corpse saw us instantly. I pulled my knife out of my waistband and without hesitation sunk it into the foul creature's head. I then pulled it out sharply, causing a vile fountain of blood to spurt from its face before it fell to its knees and died for good.

"It's okay Carl, we're both safe, just get that hatch open." I instructed him. As soon as I'd said it, the hatch was opened, and a ball of the cool night air hit my face, soothing me but at the same time, bringing screams and sounds of pain pouring into my ears. I pushed Carl through the hatch, and just after he had climbed through, Daryl leaned down and extended his hand out for me to grab. When he did this, an old corpse with black, empty eye sockets started sniffing around the door. I froze, terrified, and looked up at Daryl. He glared at me and pressed his available index finger to his lips, indicating for me to be silent. I nodded fearfully and reached up for his hand, and proceeded to be lifted through the hatch to the roof. I got to the roof and slammed the lid down, bolting it shut again to stop anything following us up there. Carl was sobbing again, asking the two other men about his mother.

"She's safe Carl, look!" and pointed to the green SUV that Rick had thrown her into. She was peering, petrified out of the windscreen, as 3 fully grown corpses attempted to scratch away the glass that separated them, then her face broke into a relieved smile when she saw Carl waving at her from the roof. It was a lot easier to work with him when he was happy. I turned to Dale, my face contorted with anguish and confusion.

"What happened?" I moaned, lost and confused. He looked at the camp, around the tents and cars, then at me, mouth hanging open slightly.

"I don't...Shane was meant to be...I thought Shane w..." he trailed off, lost for words. Daryl was standing at the end, firing arrows off into the frenzy that was still raging on. There must have been at least 50 corpses, chasing and hunting members of our own, but Daryl, Dale and myself were positioned on the roof, attempting to aid our family in any way we could. After Dale had trailed off, Daryl turned to him with a look of disgust.

"Shane my ass, motherless bastard weren't takin' watch, he couldn't give a shit about anyone but his self." He spat viciously. Carl whimpered at this, he was extremely close to Shane apparently, and listening to the slander from Daryl definitely upset him. Daryl chose to ignore the boy's wounded noise, and with that outburst from him we all returned to defending our camp to the best of our abilities.

Morning. Proper morning now. Everyone was still tired and scared from the camp being overrun that night, but now we were groggy and grief stricken. The group had apparently sustained massive losses the night before, Carol had lost Sophia, one of the blonde women had been bitten and killed, now being mourned by the other blonde and Herschel lay, cradling his wounded daughter Beth. There were other casualties, but I didn't want to dwell on them. My friends, Lori, Dale, Carl and Rick were all safe for now.

I had returned to the ground by now and I was walking amongst my grieving family. Seeing the pure, unshielded pain that was coming from the people I had grown to love so quickly was just...heartbreaking. There was shocking, scarlet blood spattered over everything and everyone, as most people hadn't had a chance to wash yet, and there were entrails- not only from the corpses, but from our friends- everywhere. It was a horrific, sobering sight. We'd made piles of the corpses we'd killed and separate piles for the bodies of our deceased, which we would later burn. Watching the blonde woman (Andrea, her name was) grieve over her little sister was terrible, she just wouldn't leave her side and kept...rocking her. Backwards and forwards, stroking her face and whispering to her as she did so. Lori ushered Carl into the RV so that he didn't have to witness the sad truths, but it was too late, what he'd seen was just too much for a twelve year old boy to handle, despite my best attempts to keep him hidden. Easily, the most soul-crushing part was having to witness Carol grieve over Sophia's frail little corpse, and it was clear that everybody in the camp felt exactly the same way about seeing it. Tears streaked down muddy, blood caked faces as we set about disposing of the dead. I turned to look at Dale, who was leaning against the door of the RV, face still caught in the look of disbelief and misery as he watched Andrea cry her sleeping sister to peace with the rest of the fallen. The camp, aside from the sobbing and the crying, had a silence that needed to be broken, or it would surely weigh on us all until the next onslaught.

"Why?" I asked the weary survivors, looking from one anguished face to another. Many people just looked at each other, but nobody spoke.

"Because HE-" Dale spat, pointing an accusing finger at Shane "Was more concerned about himself than everybody around you!" he finished his outburst. Shane just looked at him incredulously and then gave a little laugh of disbelief.

"Listen Grandpa, I had to check on-"he paused abruptly, not wanting the group to know who or what he was checking on. He made a side glance at Lori and then reverted his stare back to Dale.

"I had to check on something else. I left for 5 minutes, do you think that if I had known this would happen, I still would have gone?!" He fumed, his gaze darting from Dale, to me, to Rick, to Lori and to T-Dog, daring someone to disagree with him. Lori stepped forward.

"I don't think we can pin the blame entirely on Shane, that's not fair-"she began, but then Andrea stood up, furious.

"Of course you wouldn't, would you Lori?" she hissed, the first time I heard her speak. "You wouldn't ever dream of blaming Shane would you..." she continued. Of course everyone knew what she was implying, but nobody wanted to say anything, me least of all. Lori was one of my only friends, I was relieved she was alive and I hardly knew enough about her to start jumping to conclusions. Rick stepped forward to defend his wife.

"Hey, Hey, Andrea, I know you must be upset right now, but I don't think there's any need to-"he was stopped by another outburst from the grieving woman.

"Rick, you're either blind or stupid, everyone can see it!" she blurted out, visibly regretting what she'd said immediately, but turning round and storming back to be at her sister's side. Rick just looked from her to Lori, then went silent and shrugged. T-Dog stepped forward to try and put an end to the argument.

"We should stop pointin' the damn finger at everybody. That ain't gonna get us anywhere, so let's just be more careful in the future." He finished. Nobody could argue with what he'd said, as it made perfect sense, so we all just turned our backs on each other and went about correcting the camp. I watched Dale as he stormed off into the RV and then I followed him.

"You really don't like Shane do you?" I asked him, even though I knew the answer. He just looked out of the window at Shane as he stood talking to Lori, glancing nervously at Rick then us, then back to Rick. Dale shook his head and replied.

"Not especially, no. He's a hot-head...a bit like Daryl, but with Daryl what you see is what you get. A surly hick. There's something...suspicious...about Shane." He decided and then looked back at me.

"I just think he's one to look out for." He finished, before going outside to offer his condolences to Carol and Andrea. I looked down and sniffed. My first close up encounter with a large number of corpses hadn't been a great one, and I was definitely not looking to do it again in a hurry.


	9. Turning point

POV Dale.

So the door knocked one night, the night that Rick, Daryl and Glenn came back from their supplies expedition, and there's T-Dog standing outside the door with some girl. She was about 5'5 with extremely short, brown hair and sunken brown eyes. The girl was a walking disaster, and had she wandered into the group at night, she probably would have been killed without a second thought. She looked like a walker. Anyway, T-Dog told me she didn't have anywhere to stay, and was wondering if there was any space left in the RV for her...I just felt sorry for the kid. They'd probably picked her up in Atlanta city when they went to find Merle, maybe they saved her from being eaten on the road, I had no idea, but she looked awful. I told him that wasn't a problem and she just... smiled at him. She didn't look like trouble, certainly didn't look like she could cause anyone harm. I sat her down to ask her a bit about herself, and I found out some basic stuff like her name and where she'd been before, but there was something definitely odd about her behaviour. She was twitchy and tired, it didn't seem that she'd taken a particular liking to anyone in the group, and by the sounds of it, it seemed as though Daryl had given her a hard time over something. She gave me a medi-kit, I mean it wasn't anything special, but you could tell that the kid had a good heart because she was trying her hardest to fit in and help us out as best as possible. Later, she got up and accidentally revealed a nasty gunshot wound she had on her side that had scarred over and I mean, I'd heard all about soldiers running around, shooting the living and the dead...but I didn't think it really happened. Since then I've grown to like her, as have many others in our group, Lori and Carl in particular- she's just a nice kid. Small, looks like you could break her with a hug, but she's alright. Daryl doesn't seem to like her at all, but that's pretty normal for him, I'm sure he'll warm up to her, she's an efficient hunter like him...

POV Harper

About a week had passed since the campsite massacre, and things were just beginning to look up again. There had been multiple corpse sightings, but nothing that T-Dog or Rick couldn't handle. Every man or woman able to wield a weapon effectively was put on watch duty for at least one night and exactly a week after the hoard had passed through our site, I was called up for watch duty. It was during dinner that it was decided who would stay up all night and keep the group safe, and just after we'd finished laughing and eating possums that Daryl had caught, Rick stood up to speak.

"So, last night myself and Shane took the first watch for this week, tonight it's gonna be Daryl and Harper, unless there are any objections...?" He announced, glancing around to check whether everyone was okay with that. Everybody nodded, except Daryl, who was staring darkly at me, almost as if it were my fault that we had been put on guard together. I tried to look as upset as he did about it so that he wouldn't think I didn't make things worse, but in all honesty I was too nervous to care. As soon as people started to clear away their food and return their plastic plates back to Lori and Carol, Daryl leapt up from sitting next to the fire and without a word paced over to the large tree where Shane had constructed a shelf about 30ft up, with large wooden slats nailed to the trunk in a make shift ladder. He arrived at the trunk, slung his crossbow over his back and leapt up the first 5 slats, climbing the rest with unparalleled speed. I looked nervously up at the ledge and swallowed, turning round to face Shane.

"Um, are you...are you sure that can hold both of us?" I asked shyly, as it was the first time I'd spoken Shane, and I didn't want them to know I was afraid of heights. He looked at me and laughed, but not cruelly.

"Listen, if that thing can hold T-Dog, it can hold anything." He said shortly, giving me a reassuring smile. "It's not as high up as it looks either." He whispered knowingly in my ear. I didn't know Shane very well, but so far he hadn't been unkind to me, so I had no reason to distrust him. I returned his smile gratefully and ran to the looming ladder, ready to begin my ascend.

I wasn't climbing for very long, so the ladder really wasn't the worst part, the worst part was getting to the top and looking out over everything else that was 30ft below us. I quickly clutched the edge of the shabby balcony, grateful that it was there. Daryl scoffed at me.

"Don't tell me you're afraid of heights." He taunted. "This is gonna be fun." He added sarcastically. I looked at him with a humiliated expression and began loading my gun. Daryl noticed this and ripped it out of my hands, startling and annoying me at the same time.

"What are you doing now, Dixon? Can't you see I've had enough of your shit?" I sighed at him, reaching out my hand to get my gun back. He looked at me like I was stupid, again. He did that quite a lot.

"I'm not givin' you this gun back 'cause I don't trust you with it." He told me. I just stared at him, my face a mixture of anger and upset.

"YOU don't trust ME?" I asked, loudly. "Why not?!" I demanded to know. If either of us were likely to shoot ourselves by accident, it was him. He unloaded the gun and handed it back to me, rendering it useless as they were the only rounds I'd brought out with me. I looked down at the redundant gun in my hand and looked back at Daryl.

"You can't use guns on watch. You're gonna hear a noise an' straight away shoot that thing. Every asshole walker will be on us within seconds." He said, trying to reason with me. I just kept staring at him instead, completely expressionless. This made him even angrier, and he got extremely agitated.

"D'you keep starin' at me like that for, I di'nt do nothing'." He enquired angrily.

"I just wanna know why you're such as ass to me, all things considered." I said simply. This seemed to confuse him.

"Them things being...?" he looked at me for answers. I was completely ready for yet another confrontation with Dixon.

"First day I met you, I stopped you becoming corpse bait by bringing you inside. They were gonna outnumber you if I didn't. Then, I apologised and thanked you for the thing in the woods...and last week you pulled me onto the roof of the RV when the camp was overrun, saving my life...again!" I exploded at him. I just wanted to get along with this guy, we didn't have to be friends forever or anything, I just wanted to know that we could have a conversation without it turning into a shouting match. He wasn't even focused on me anymore, he was just looking down at the twig of wood he'd brought up, fashioning it into another arrow he could use to hunt with. I looked him up and down and turned away from him, pulled my knees up to my chin and rested my head on them, pouting as I did so. Daryl noticed this and shook his head at me.

"Girl." He spat at me. I spun round to stare at him again.

"Is that supposed to be an insult?"I quizzed him. "I AM A GIRL, YOU-"I began, but I couldn't get much further than that before he leaned across the rickety wooden ledge and grabbed my head with both hands, putting one hand across my mouth the keep me silent. This enraged me further, so I reached my arm out and went to smack him, but he saw this coming and brought the hand that was clamped on the back of my head to counter the slap that was about to land on his face. He scowled at me and pushed me away. I couldn't believe his audacity, what the hell did he think he was doing?!

"What are you doing?!" I hissed at him, still fuming from the physical altercation, breath steaming out in front of me in the cold night air. Daryl locked eye contact, staring intently at me and gave me that oh-so familiar look that he seemed to only spare for me...the one where he looked at me as if I were stupid, and spoke.

"You can't run your mouth off like that on watch!" he told me, expression filled with disdain. "Somethin's gonna hear you!" he exclaimed, a shadow of worry flickering across his face. His eyes travelled from my face to the empty distance over my bloodstained shoulder, because despite Carol and Lori's best efforts the blood that Daryl had wiped on my shoulder didn't come out of my once-white shirt. Suddenly, his face sunk and he leapt to his feet, crossbow in hand, crouched like a cat about to pounce on its prey. He signalled to look behind me and I turned slowly, to see a small group of corpses ambling towards the camp in the darkness.

They must have been about a minute away from bursting into the camp and causing more hysteria and both Daryl and I looked at each other guiltily as we'd been too busy fighting with one another to notice. We returned our gaze to the wandering pack, and drew our weapons. I looked at the silver revolver in my hand and remembered what I'd been told about the noise from the gun attracting more corpses...walkers as he'd referred to them as. The feeling of guilt didn't go away, so I stored the weapon away and took my place next to Daryl, who was aiming an arrow directly at the flock of walkers. He steadied his hand and pulled the trigger, landing a razor sharp arrow head into the skull of a walker. The others disregarded this mostly and kept walking, only picking up their speed as they did so, desperate to cause chaos and get an easy meal. Daryl went about dispatching the rest of them efficiently and quickly, but I'd seen another 3 walkers that had escaped his attention. I frantically tapped his arm and pointed slightly left of the spot where all the walkers were lying in a messy, bloody heap, towards the 3 that were making their way to camp.

Finally, after the panic that both of us had been feeling was gone and we'd made sure there were no more walkers around, we relaxed. I puffed out my cheeks and exhaled, throwing myself on my back, a million thoughts whirling through my head. I rolled myself onto my side so I was facing Daryl, who was leaning on one arm, staring out at the forest.

"That shouldn't have happened." I finally said, breaking the relieved silence that had rested between us. He continued to stare out at the forest and nodded. Finally, he turned his head to me and sniffed.

"Bring a better weapon next time." He advised me. I smirked, and completely as a shock to me Daryl returned it. I don't know whether it was because we'd just been less than a minute from total disaster and it felt good to smile, or whether he was beginning to...well...not hate me. Something about it just seemed absolutely hilarious to me and I couldn't stop myself from letting out a small giggle. He raised his eyebrows at that, which made me burst out in full, uncontrollable fits of laughter and by the time Shane had climbed the ladder to take over the watch, we were both in tears clutching our sides laughing.

_**This is the turning point! Again, thanks for the reads, I hope you're enjoying it guys, reviews or anything would be great just to know what you think. -Hannah**_


	10. Dropping a bombshell

The day after our scare on the watch shelf I didn't have anything to do. Lori had told me not to go out hunting that day as I'd gone for the past 4 days in a row, and I was beginning to get a little frayed around the edges. All the trees and woodland had turned my face into a canvas of fresh scratches, the tumbles and falls had spattered bruises across my face, transforming my face into a tragic visual reminder of what the world has turned to. A mess. I had Lori really concerned.

"Uh, Harper?" She called out to me as I was headed off determinedly towards the forest. I looked back at her, only slowing down a little bit as she was walking along behind me, trying to keep up.

"Yeah?" I replied.

"I don't think you should go out today...give yourself a break, you've been working really hard to fit in and don't get me wrong, I'm grateful- we're ALL grateful, but I think you should take it easy for a day or two." She pleaded. I stopped walking and looked her up and down.

"Why d'you say that?" I asked her shortly, fearing her response. I expected her to say that it was because Daryl was better than me or that because it only took one person, but that wasn't the reason she gave. She put one hand sympathetically on my shoulder.

"I'm just worried that you're exhausting yourself. Your face is..." she trailed off, not wanting to say 'a mess' because despite the world falling down and there being no need to keep up social conventions, she still couldn't bring herself to tell me what she was thinking. I finished the sentence for her.

"I know, it's a mess, I'm a mess." I said, with a hint of self pity. She detected this and sighed, rubbing the shoulder that she was still holding onto firmly, trying to stop me leaving, as if I'd slip away as soon as she let go. I relaxed my entire body and put my knife back in my waistband, as I'd been clutching it in preparation for a day in the woods. She smiled widely at me.

"Just take it easy today. You look like you could do with it. Help Dale or something." She said, backing away, finally turning to head back to the glittering life source of the camp that was in fact the creek. I watched her walk away until she arrived next to Andrea, then I circled round to look at the RV. I paced towards it until a familiar voice made me turn.

"Harper." It called out to me. I turned, only to see Rick walking towards me, face awash with concern. I flashed him a brief smile.

"Yeah?" I said, for the second time in 5 minutes. He was scanning my face carefully, eyes hovering on the cuts and bruises, still the look of concern plagued his fatigue ridden face.

"You feelin' okay?" He asked me, head cocked to the side slightly. I let out a small laugh.

"If this is about my face, I'm telling you-"I began but Glenn's girlfriend walked past me at that point.

"You look like shit." She stated loudly, continuing walking. I looked at the floor, embarrassed and a little hurt. Rick saw this and spoke quickly.

"Ignore her, she's on edge because Glenn's gone into town and she had to stay here to look after Beth. Actually, speaking of Beth..." he started. Beth had panicked during the attack and tried to run off, but unfortunately as it was dark she was mistaken for a walker and shot by her sister, Glenn's girlfriend. Anyway, she'd been in a bad way for the first few days after the incident, but she recovered massively since then and she's been staying in Rick and Lori's tent ever since.

"Is she recovering?" I asked him timidly, I'd only been in their group a short time after all, and I didn't want to feel like I was imposing. He didn't see it that was, and he smiled at my question.

"She's a lot better, and I'm sure she'd be grateful for the concern." He grinned. I nodded and smiled back, I liked Beth. I hadn't really spoken to her, but she seemed like a nice girl and she definitely didn't deserve to be in this mess just for trying to run. Everyone was scared, she didn't deserve to be shot, regardless of whether it was an accident or not. Rick continued speaking.

"Anyway, she's a lot better now but she really can't stay in a tent anymore, Herschel wants to keep a closer eye on how she's doing. He told me that your wound wasn't so serious anymore, so I was just wondering-"but I cut him off before he could finish.

"If I'd stay in a tent so that Beth can recover in the RV, don't worry, it's no problem." I said, smiling reassuringly. "Just tell me which tent I'm staying in and I'll be more than happy to go there." I told him.

"Great, I knew you'd understand. I squared it up with Daryl for you to stay in his tent, he said he was cool with it...'as long as she doesn't touch any of my damn stuff' I believe his exact words were." Rick told me. My heart dropped about a mile at the prospect of sleeping near the redneck, just in case he tried to slit my throat and skin me in my sleep. Rick saw my hesitation and put a hand on my shoulder. People seemed to like doing that to me.

"Look I know he ain't the easiest person to get along with, but he's not a bad person. Not a patch on his asshole brother." He said, lip curling a little in disgust at the thought of someone like Daryl but worse. It wasn't a fun thought for me either, but I kept that to myself. Rick let his arm drop from my shoulder and looked at me one last time.

"You'll be fine, trust me. If he gives you a hard time, just come and see me, I'll have a word with him." He said. I felt a whole lot more reassured about it all, knowing that Rick would be backing me up if something happened. Rick turned and walked off after that, leaving me to get back to the RV to help Dale with whatever he was doing.

I just hoped we wouldn't keep the ENTIRE camp awake with our shouting matches. Or raucous laughter.


	11. Still waters run deep

That same night, after the sun had finally dipped down underneath the earth and the moon had risen above the trees, bathing our makeshift neighbourhood in a silver wash of light, it was almost impossible to believe that there was a lethal plague dragging itself across the earth. Everybody had packed away the plates and the last embers of the campfire had been stomped out so as to conceal ourselves from walkers, and everybody had finally retired sleepily to their tents to enjoy a night of hopefully undisturbed sleep. T-Dog and Andrea had just settled themselves on the ledge for lookout, so there was no immediate danger to the camp and I turned my head away from the faint heat still radiating from the dusty, dying pit of fire, and walked towards the tent that I was now supposed to share with Daryl. Neither of us were on watch that night, so we would both be awake for a while in the tent.

I didn't know how awkward things were going to be but despite the mixed feelings we had regarding each other I had to stay there for Beth's wellbeing. I looked at the ragged, muddy green tent, unzipped the tent and stepped inside. Daryl must have been talking to one of the others about something, because he wasn't in the tent when I got there and so I decided I was going to have a look around. There was a single blow up mattress in the corner, with tousled and worn bedding and a grey, bloodstained pillow. My stomach knotted when I saw the blood, but I wasn't too worried, Daryl could take care of himself. Knowing him it probably wasn't even his blood. I moved to the small, messy pile of items he had next to his deflating bed. In it, I could see a dirty towel (again with more bloodstains), a knife with the initials 'D.D' on the hilt, scratched in by another knife, not engraved and underneath it all lay his leather jacket with angel wings stretched across the back. How ironic, Daryl the angel. I scoffed at the thought and shook my head, still staring at the messy heap of things. A zipping noise came from behind me and Daryl appeared, crouching through the door to try and get in.

"Thought Rick told you not to touch my stuff." He grumbled, seeing me observe his stuff. I was a bit offended that he thought I'd stolen from him, but then I remembered what Dale and Rick had advised me...not to take Daryl too seriously.

"I wasn't touching your stuff." I told him with as much patience as I could muster. It was getting late and I wasn't feeling up for any of Daryl's shit tonight. I don't know whether my forced patience was annoying him or not and I didn't really care. He padded over to the mattress and threw himself down heavily onto it despite its feeble protests of leaking air. I laughed at the noise his bed made and he just lifted his head and glared at me. I looked him in the eyes and sighed after I managed to control my laughter.

"You know, this whole sharing tent thing might be a lot easier if we just sort of..."I stopped midway through my sentence because if looks could kill, I'd be a mangled corpse.

"That's what I'm talking about. The death glares and the hostility. This whole tent-share thing could be a lot easier if we just dropped the hate thing and learnt to get along." I gushed out at him. Daryl looked at me as though I'd grown an extra head, so I took that to mean that he wasn't going to go along with my idea.

"You could just mind y'damn business and we could get along with our own lives." He suggested in derision, standing up as he did so.

"Or I could just mind my own damn business and we get along with our own lives." I echoed sadly. He noted the unhappiness in my voice and offered me an olive branch.

"I'm from North Georgia. You?"He asked. I knew he was only asking to make me feel better, but I appreciated the effort he made.

"Virginia." I replied. "Virginia born and raised." I stated proudly, grinning like the Cheshire cat. He laughed at me, but not entirely cruelly.

"Might start callin' you that, sounds prettier'n Gunshot." He said, smiling a little now. The smile that I had on my face from telling him where I was from stayed on my face, frozen, but the emotion that had once been behind had long since disappeared. The smile was nothing more than a crease on my face now, and the same familiar sinking feeling had returned to my stomach. I let the crease fall, and with it, cascaded a burning hot tear down my face. This evidently confused Daryl, and I could understand why. A second before that I was smiling and now it was as if a mirror had been broken, the cracks, suddenly visible as I attempted to trivialise what had happened for the sake of not ripping this guy's head off in this future.

"The hell gunshot?" he said, tone full of shock. I glared at him. "I di'nt do anythin'!" he exclaimed, tinges of guilt riddling his voice. I stopped glaring and shook my head.

"No I know, it's nothing really." I sniffed, viciously rubbing my face with both hands, as if trying to scrub off the scars and tears. I looked back up at him when I'd done and just raised my eyebrows. He still looked to me for an explanation that I felt only visual evidence would provide. Without speaking, I lifted my shirt up a small way, just enough for him to be able to see the raised scar that had been pissing me off for an entire year. He just looked from the scar to my face, tapping his foot so that his entire person shook with it. I dropped the hem of the t-shirt back, allowing it to float around my waist, waiting for a response from the silent redneck in front of me.

Instead of saying anything, he reached for the bottom of his wife-beater shirt and pulled it off over the top of his head. He bent down slightly and pointed to a thick, curved scar which started at the top of his shoulder and crossed down to his opposite collar bone. It was raised as much as mine, identical in colour but it was a lot thinner, and it didn't have the little veins of extra scarring coming off from the outside. I just stared at it, confused but touched by the fact that he'd done this to make me feel slightly better about my own wound. I nodded at him and looked away again, turning to the place I was going to sleep for the foreseeable future. A small rollout mat with my duvet thrown on it, wrapped around so it was basically a sleeping bag without a zip. We were still in total silence, as we had been since I dismissed his concern, until I turned to look at him. I turned just after he'd finished putting his shirt back on and flashed him a small, grateful smile.

As hard as it had been to show him the reality of a gunshot wound on a 16 year old girl, I felt more of an explanation was needed in order for this jagged hunter to understand. I wanted to tell him, to tell anyone the pure, uncontrollable fear that I'd felt as it happened...but I couldn't bring myself to find the words.

"Soldiers." I explained in a voice barely more audible than a whisper. I didn't expect him to fully understand, I didn't think anyone could, but the most comforting thing was for some reason I knew he wouldn't tell everyone.

We didn't say anything else for another ten minutes or so as we were getting ready to sleep, but just after I buried myself in the warm folds of my duvet I poked my head out of the thick cover.

"Daryl?" I called out softly, for fear of waking him or any of the people in adjoining tents up.

"What?" he replied after a few seconds, still as quietly as I'd been. I paused for a few seconds, trying to select the best words I could think of.

"Thanks." I eventually settled on. He didn't reply but I assume he'd heard me, so I fell into a deep and untroubled sleep that night, a huge burden lifted from my chest.


	12. Outside the comfort zone

Days, and I hadn't told anyone else what I'd partially revealed to Daryl. I thought about telling Dale, but I remembered how difficult I'd found it, so I chose to keep it a secret.

I picked my way through the pile of rubbish we'd made at the side of camp so that I could get through to the creek, which lay on the other side of it. I tiptoed through the mound of discarded bandages and water bottles until I finally reached the clear blue expanse of water. Lori and Carol were elsewhere doing I don't know what, but Shane was sat by the sandy white rocks at the far edge of the creek, but I couldn't make out what he was doing over there. I stood still for a few seconds, absorbing the beauty of the chasm we were in surrounded by yellow, jagged rocks. The rocks cast shadows which loomed daintily over the void that was filled with rounded boulders and miniscule pebbles, cooling the areas that were bathed in shadow. I slowly began to plod towards Shane, trying to keep myself cool by skirting around the outside to stay in the shadowy areas. I must have been about 20 yards from Shane when he looked up from what he was doing and squinted through the sunlight at me. I could make out now that he was cleaning his knife off in the creek, twisting and turning the blade so it reflected the sunlight and glinted menacingly, blindingly. I smiled at him and kept walking until I was right next to him, then I threw myself down on the ground and sat next to him.

"Hey." I greeted him, trying to strike up a friendly conversation. Shane was one of the few members of the group that I hadn't really spoken to, and so I was relatively keen to get to know him a little more...seeing as I was trusting him with my life several nights a week and all. He observed me for a little while then replied.

"Hey." He said warily. "What brings you out here then?" he inquired. He was right to inquire, it did seem a bit odd that I just randomly sat with him and started conversation.

"Just wanted to say hi." I grinned. He just looked at me, so I tried to keep the conversational ball rolling.

"So you built that ledge, huh?" I asked cheerfully, and thankfully his whole demeanour changed and he smiled at me.

"You mean that ledge you're scared of?" he said through slight laughter. I didn't want to be offended by it and stop the conversation so I just went along with it.

"Yeah, the ledge I'm a bit scared of...only a little bit." I agreed, I wasn't about to let him know I hated it, otherwise I wouldn't be on watch ever again and would therefore join the glorified dishwashers. There wasn't anything wrong with them; I just knew I would have hated it. Shane looked at me again, this time with more kindness.

"Don't worry, it's hard when you're scared of something. You can't just be scared of walkers all the time, you don't automatically forget all the fears that you had when life was different either." He told me wisely. He was right, the fears I'd harboured since the outbreak were ten times worse than my fear of heights.

"It might be easier to just...redirect my fear." I admitted to him. He looked confused, so I tried to explain.

"It's easy to hold on to my sorta irrational fear of heights- it's not even the fall that'll kill me, it's the landing- but if I can ignore how scared I am when it comes to heights I can put some of that fear back into being scared of walkers...they're more likely to kill me." I swallowed, terrified at the thought of being mauled to death by a walker. Shane shook his head.

"Sure, you could do that. Wouldn't that be like losing part of you though?" he quizzed. I just stared at him, carefully choosing my words.

"Yeah. Yeah it would. But it's like choosing the best parts of you...the parts you get to keep." I told him. We smiled at each other for a moment as we both contemplated this strange concept of selecting the good parts of a person and discarding the rest. Unfortunately you've got to take the bad with the good, and the bad part of me was the bullet that was still firmly holed up inside me...not my irrational fear of heights. I looked at Shane who had occupied himself once again with cleaning the knife. I opened my mouth to say something when he turned around and looked at the area behind my head and leapt to his feet in one swift action, leaving me sat confused on the floor.

" 'Scuse me." He murmured, marching off to the trees behind me, leaving me feeling confused and a little indignant. I turned to look at him go, and then my confusion melted away faster than soft snow under the burning heat of the sun. A walker was stumbling towards us both from the trees, its bulbous eyes fixed determinedly on me. Shane marched towards it and in a single movement swung his knife down through its brittle cranium and ripped it out, bringing with it a red jet of blood, turned black by the sheer amount of time it had to decompose and rot. It crumpled to his feet, and when it was laying in the dirt, he brought his heavy duty army boot down through the corpse's head, splitting it like a coconut, the blood dribbling out like macabre milk. He turned back to me and sniffed hard, disgusted by the events that had just happened.

"So much for cleaning this." He said mumbled, flicking the blood off the blade. He'd just stopped me from being eaten and I owed him one. I stood up and walked over to him, upon reaching him I took his knife out of his hand.

"I'll do it, don't worry." I told him, smiling. "You did just save my ass after all." He looked at me gratefully nodding, and we resumed out sitting position next to the water. I began cleaning the blade immediately. He watched me intently, as if I would spin round and bury the blade in his chest even though I had absolutely no desire to. We spent a few minutes in silence, sitting in the aftermath of the attack, until finally I broke the quiet.

"Lori told me you were in the city when the soldiers went in." I said quietly. He wasn't expecting this and looked up at me in shock, before nodding hesitantly. I gave him a sympathetic grin before I resumed speaking.

"I know what it was like." I said softly, thinking it would make him feel better. Shane then threw me a look even dirtier than some of the ones Daryl had thrown my direction over the past few weeks.

"You have no idea." He snarled shortly, lifting his hand to his face and biting his already too short nails. I smirked at him and then refocused my eyes on the blade I was cleaning.

"Why do you think Daryl calls me gunshot?" I softly asked him, still smirking. He looked up at me guiltily before lowering his hand from his face and resting on the ground next to him.

"Sorry, I had no idea..."he trailed off, still looking guiltily at me. He turned his head away from me and looked out over the water, and I copied him.

"Where were you?" he asked me, already knowing the outline of what happened, he just needed filling in on the details. I paused before I answered, reliving my first memories of the outbreak in my head.

"At work. In a department store. They filed in and just starting spraying the bullets at the people...didn't have time to hide..."I confessed. It was the first time I'd told anybody proper details about what had happened, other than telling Daryl I'd been shot by a soldier. We stayed in silence for about 5 minutes after I'd told him, until I finally stood up and handed his sparkling clean knife back to him.

"Thanks for taking down the walker." I thanked him, before beginning my trek back up to the campsite to regroup with everyone else.


	13. Stepping into the unknown

Later on that day the rest of the group had come together for a meeting to discuss the possibility of a supply run. I was totally new to this as I hadn't been in the group for very long, and the only supplies I'd ever collected before were rabbits, so I was pretty keen to see what was going on. Everybody looked a little anxious, and they desperately crowded around Rick and Shane for more information. I snaked my way into the centre of the group with Carl, eager to find out what was occurring.

"Alright, you know the drill, Glenn, Daryl...ah." Rick said, looking round the circle. He took a long pause before saying the last name, as the girl whose name he was going to call was lying in the RV fighting for her health.

"It doesn't look like Beth's gonna be able to go with you two again for the foreseeable future." He informed the men.

"I'm not letting you go without a third person, safety in numbers, and there's gonna be a lot of stuff you'll need to bring back." He told them sternly, and they didn't look like they were about to disagree. They looked at each other and then around the circle for a substitute Beth. Glenn was the first to speak up, squinting his eyes in the bright sunlight, shielding them with his hand which was cupped firmly to the side of his head.

"We need someone small and fast really...uhh, she'd run in, find things quickly and run out...it was kinda her thing." He told the group sheepishly. He then looked apologetically at Herschel and then down at his feet. Daryl stepped forward and to my utter disbelief he pointed to me.

"What about her?" he inquired. I looked at him sceptically, Glenn sharing my look of disbelief, until his girlfriend stepped forward.

"No, I'll go." She volunteered herself, probably only wanting to make sure no other girls got to look at Glenn. I'd hardly spoken to her but already I knew I didn't like her. Glenn shook his head, much to her annoyance.

"No. Too dangerous." He said simply, giving her a slight glare. Rick stepped in between me and Glenn.

"That's not an entirely bad idea." He admitted to Daryl, his eyes fixed on me, scanning my size.

"Can you run very fast?" he asked me. I smirked at him, with a slightly smug tinge to my smile.

"What do you think?" I laughed. Rick laughed with me and ruffled my hair playfully, before his face returned to a look of slight concern.

"You sure you wanna go? Don't feel you have to prove yourself or anything." He said, seeing right through my reason for going. I'd been proving myself to various people all the time I was there, showing them that I belonged and deserved a place, and now it was time to show them all what I could do. I nodded at Rick, eyebrows raised.

"Just give me a list." I told him. He looked at me intently for a few seconds, trying to suss out why I was offering to leave the safety of the camp and throw myself into a world full of walkers but eventually he gave in and nodded. He handed me a list of things that the group needed, along with a few added luxuries and let us leave. I dashed back to the tent and darted in as quickly as I could. I negotiated my way past Daryl's stuff, which for some reason he'd thrown all across the tent, turning it into some sort of unorganised free-for-all and found my little pile of stuff in the corner to retrieve the revolver I'd barely used since finding it in the house. I examined it for a few seconds before tucking it into my pocket and running off to join the others, leaving the camp properly (excluding the forest) for the first time since arriving. I caught up with the other two and Daryl turned and looked down at me.

"You di'nt bring me my crossbow?!" he exclaimed, apparently annoyed.

"You didn't tell me to!" I said exasperatedly. He just stared at me then shrugged, waiting for me to run off. I rolled my eyes and darted back into the tent, looking frantically around for his precious crossbow before stopping dead in my tracks. I thought hard about it then realised that he'd been carrying it when he told me to go back and get it.

Asshole.

I stepped out from the tent and slunk back over to them, face red with embarrassment while they stood watching me and giggling.

"Bully." I pouted, punching him lightly in the stomach. He burst out laughing, considering himself quite the genius. Glen just stood observing the whole thing and smiling, then addressed me.

"Hey, come on, grow up you two." He advised us, and started walking over towards the mint green SUV, followed closely by myself and a still laughing Daryl. I stopped a few metres short of the SUV and stared at it. Daryl suddenly sobered up.

"What's the matter, ain't never seen a car before?" he mocked. I glared at him, sarcastically laughing.

"Funny, have either of you got a licence?" I inquired, worried. Daryl looked at me incredulously.

"The hell d'you think's gonna pull us over?" he questioned me. I thought this through then stopped worrying. I walked the last few steps towards the SUV and wrenched the back door open, leaping inside. It was red hot in there, so I leapt back out again, and Glenn looked at me with complete confusion.

"We're not...we're not there yet..." he said, genuinely confused as to why I'd jumped from the car. I smiled sheepishly at him and stepped back in, trying my hardest to breathe through the stifling heat that was in the car. When you're in emergency situations like that and gas is limited, you can't really afford to turn on the air conditioning. Daryl threw his crossbow in the back with me, terrifyingly I wasn't sure whether he'd put the safety lock on it or not. Thankfully he had, as I wasn't shot in the face. Glen stepped into the driver side and pulled away from the camp, tearing me away from the safety that I hadn't left since I arrived. I stretched my seatbelt across my lap and pressed my cheek against the cool glass of the window, staring out and watching the road slip away behind us.

I couldn't help but let my mind wander to poor Beth, lying in the ramshackle RV with minimal medical care, or how I should be back at the camp and she should be sat in the back of the SUV on her way to help the group...but then I pushed those thoughts out of my head. She was recovering, she was getting better, they were the most important things and not that she'd missed a run into town. I peeled my face off the window and undid my seatbelt, checking the time on the car as I did so. 13:23. I'd been thinking about Beth for a whole ten minutes and completely ignored where we were going. Instead of staring out the window I shuffled along into the middle seat and leaned forward so that my head was in between their shoulders.

"Hi!" I squeaked at them, startling them both, so much so that Glenn nearly lost control of the wheel, he raised his eyebrows in exasperation and started feebly laughing at his own nervousness. Daryl wasn't so happy about my sudden presence in the front, as he reached across, put his hand on my forehead and used it to push me back into the back seat.

"Ass." I muttered, as Glenn started laughing. "How far away is it?" I asked them, genuinely wondering how far away they had to travel each time they got supplies.

"Not far now, about 3 minutes." Glenn replied. "Thing is, we don't know how many other survivors there are, and we've been cleaning the store out recently...we don't know how much stuff there is left." He admitted, a shadow of concern and doubt clouding his otherwise cheerful face. We spent the rest of the journey in silence.

We finally pulled up into a dusty, gravelled car park outside a run-down walmart. I looked sceptically at it, pulling my gun out of its storage place and feared the mass of walkers that could have been inside waiting. Daryl reached into the back and pulled out his crossbow, tossing a spare handgun to Glenn as he did so. I started towards the front door, but before I could reach it Daryl put his hand across my front, stopping me from going any further. He pointed to where Glenn was already heading as an exit round the back seemed to be more what they had in mind. I nodded and jogged round with them to the back door, gun at the ready, shining in the blistering heat and sun. Glenn pointed to the door with one hand and looked at me. I wasn't entirely sure what he was expecting me to do, but I knew he definitely wanted me to do something. I walked up to the door and rattled its shaky handle once or twice. No chance of it opening that way. I looked back at Daryl and Glenn for some indication as to what they wanted me to do, but they were just both blank faces. Probably should have spoken about this in the car, as it would have saved a few awkward minutes. I bounced of the door a couple of times gently, and then looked to them one last time, hoping for some sort of signal. As none came I took matters into my own hands. Taking a deep breath in, I steeled myself for impact and kicked the door as hard as I could above the lock, hoping to break down the door. It splintered and so I did it again, only the second time it completely crumpled and burst open with a deafening crash. I looked at Glenn for some nod of approval, but none came. Instead I was met with complete shock and confusion.

"Well. Beth never did that." Daryl finally said, being the first to step into the dark backroom of the store, closely pursued by Glenn and I. We walked swiftly through the shadowy store room, shelves that were once stacked high were lying desolate and stark on either side of us, the perfect lurking place for walkers. I pushed this thought clear out of my mind and closely followed. I followed Glenn, keeping my head ducked down low until we were in sight of the dim light emanating from the front of the store. We arrived at the door and Daryl stopped right in front of us, signalling for us to be quiet. He turned side on so that we could see the concern etched into his face as he bent down and picked up an empty can, presumably left by another group of wandering survivors. Glenn and I frowned at this, not entirely sure where he was going with it but we knew better than to ask him out loud. When you're in a situation as grim as the one we were in we knew we had to just trust whatever Daryl was doing...and hope to God he wasn't wrong. He held the can in his hand, knife in the other and without warning he threw the can out of the store room and at a glass bottle of water that was perched on a nearby shelf gathering dust. The can collided with the bottle and both were sent tumbling to the floor, where the glass was unceremoniously smashed into a million tiny fragments.

We all stood there for a few moments, not sure what we were waiting for except Daryl, then for whatever reason he'd done it for, he seemed satisfied with the results. We started to walk and fan out so that we could begin our raid of the store, however just as Glenn had stepped out in front, a huge, dungaree wearing, redneck walker stepped out from behind a shelf, disturbed by the smash, and grabbed him, trying to tear away at his clothes so he could get straight into the flesh beneath. I was closer to it than Daryl, so as the walker turned away from me to finish off Glenn I ran and pounced on its back, driving my knife down with full force through the roof of its decaying head. It staggered a little what with my weight and the unexpected weapon that I'd forced into his head, and as it was struggling around I twisted the hilt and dragged it out again, pulling up grey brain matter along with it. The burly walker fell to the floor and Glenn jumped out of its path, and once it had hit the floor I slid cleanly off, panting heavily. We all just looked at each other for a few seconds, shocked at the sudden frenzy that we'd just been part of. I widened my eyes and stared at Daryl.

"Feel free to step in any time!" I exclaimed, exasperatedly. He scowled at me.

"You were doing okay!" he retorted bewilderedly. I dropped my gaze and put my hands on my hips, staring at the corpse on the floor. Glenn looked at me, still visibly shaken and nodded at me in gratitude. The way he was looking into me made me think that up until I saved him he'd been doubting me and waiting for me to mess up. These feelings of uncertainty he had rapidly melted, as he stepped over the corpse and pulled me into a brief hug. When he released me I grinned at him and we began combing the shop for supplies.

I wandered over to ransacked personal hygiene section, hoping to pick up a few luxury items for Lori and Carol as a way of thanking them for all the overlooked work they did. It's weird to think of things like shampoo and soap as luxury items, but since the outbreak they were items that they just hadn't been able to worry about, just substituting soap for plain water. The various bottles and boxes of useless items were scattered all over the shelf, an unorganised mish-mash of merchandise for me to pick through and take. I snaked my arm in through the pile of bottles and spread them out a little more so that I could see the labels a bit better, feeling the different shapes of bottles instead of reading them closely. I extended my hand out to the back of the shelf where the pink and blue bottles were still standing, totally undisturbed by scavengers. I used my arm to knock them over and brush them aside so that I could see through to the next aisle, but when I got rid of the final few bottles I was confronted by a peeling, rotting twitching walker, eyes looming out of the shadows. I screamed in its ugly face until my lungs were tight, and then everything darkness consumed me, enveloping around me and pulling quickly into a deep warm sleep.


	14. Becoming the weak link

When I finally came round I was laying on the hard, tiled floor of the store, a sticky warm feeling at the side of my head which I could only assume was blood. So yeah, I was lying in a pool of my own blood wondering if this was what it was like to be dead, when I felt a hand on my shoulder roughly shake me into a dazed state of being more awake.

"Uhhh..." I groaned, touching the sticky side of my head. I retracted my hand only to confirm my suspicions that I'd been lying in my own blood. Even though I'd grown accustomed to the sight of blood, it was still pretty daunting to see my own just spilt onto the floor like that. I gazed upwards, still befuddled, to see Glenn crouched down beside me trying to peer at my cut. I wearily traced it along with my finger to see that stretched back about 3 inches, which admittedly caused me a little concern. It didn't feel very wide at first, but then I traced around the outside of it with my finger one more time to discover that it got wider and more damp at the end closer to the top of my head. I sighed deeply and slumped back on the floor. Glenn thought I was going to hit my head again, so he thrust his hand behind my head to stop it from colliding with the bottom shelf on the rack. I rolled my head to look to the next aisle again because I wanted to see what had become of the walker that scared me. My brain jolted as I groggily remembered the walker, and tried to scramble into action against the oncoming threat of the corpse, but as soon as I tried to lift myself off the floor the room began to spin, and I crashed to the floor again. My eyelids were heavy, so with all the effort I could muster I gazed round the rack and saw the immense bulk lying on the floor, much as I had done...except its head lay 2 metres away from it. Standing over the body was Daryl, wiping blood from his knife and hands, smearing it back across the corpses clothing and watching to make sure it didn't get up. My entire body relaxed and I struggled not to pass out again.

"Come on, we've got everything we need, we've got to get her back to camp." Glenn instructed Daryl, picking up my right arm and draping it round his shoulder, indicating for Daryl to do the same. I wanted to help them but I was so disorientated whenever I tried to speak or move it came out in an incoherent garble, and my movement was clumsy and disjointed, much like my thought trains. They half carried half dragged me out to the waiting SUV and bundled me into the back before Glenn threw Daryl the keys over the roof and told him to 'Just drive.' Glenn then ducked into the back of the car where I was sprawled over two thirds of the seats, leaving him only a very small percentage of room. He tore the grey hoodie I was wearing off my and pressed it against the behemoth gash, that was now leaking blood rapidly like a small burst pipe. Other than the numbing pressure I could from Glenn pressing the soft cotton against my head, I couldn't really feel anything, but slight pins and needles in my legs from the confinement of the SUV. I couldn't help but think in my befuddled state that I'd let people down...

And that Lori and Carol were gonna have a bitch of a time getting even more blood out of my clothing.

After being rocked around in the SUV for about half an hour drifting in and out of consciousness, we arrived back at the threadbare but comforting camp we called home. By this point, I'd lost more blood, so I was extremely dizzy and I whenever I moved of my own accord, the world spun and collided with the sky. I relied on others to assist me to the tent, hastily dragging me through the ragged nylon sheet and dumping me down on the muddy roll out mat. I remember my head hitting the soft mass of feathers in my pillow, and being crowded by the blurred faces of Glenn, Rick, Herschel and Lori before slowly allowing myself to slip into a controlled sleep.

_**Third person narrative**_

The mood in the camp had changed like the direction of the wind. The peaceful bliss of the undisturbed camp quickly turned sour when the mint, metallic green SUV suddenly braked on the outskirts of the camp, skidding rapidly to the side as it did so. Immediately after the car had come to a halt, dust still billowing up into the air around the tyres, two heavy doors swung open, and two men leapt out. The man that jumped out of the rear door was relatively short with a skinny physique and midnight black hair. He was clearly of Korean descent and he had an air of erratic nervousness about him that could only have been caused by a walking plague of the undead. He turned quickly and dived into the back of the car, reaching for something just as the driver was stepping out of the SUV. The driver was a tall, well built and unkempt man, short, dishevelled hair with an air of being permanently pissed off. Their sudden, desperate reappearance at camp had brought a tense atmosphere, disturbing the peaceful tranquillity of the area as people began to poke their heads out of tents and a large, dilapidated RV try better get a glimpse of what was occurring. They stepped out of their tents, sleepily shuffles breaking into concerned jogs towards the SUV.

The two men that had climbed out of the car reached into the back and produced the body of a seemingly lifeless teenage girl. The driver was lifting her up, attempting to manoeuvre her into an easier position for transporting her, but it already looked too late as her face was pale white, short, dark hair matted with drying blood, white tshirt stained with the blood trickling rapidly from a large gash at the front of her head which travelled all the way up into the dark forest of hair on her scalp. The smaller man draped one of her limp arms over the driver's shoulders then quickly held a grey, blood tarnished hoodie to the girl's head, muscles contorting with the amount of pressure he was using to stop her bleeding. Her head lolled from side to side as she was lifted and carried, the extremely slim girl completely oblivious to everything around her. Unbeknownst to her she'd gained the attention of the entire group, who now ambled around frantically trying to see what had happened and attempting to help out. The two men transported her to the tent and set her down on the dirty, roll out camping mat which was where she usually slept, watching her as her eyes slowly opened and closed, until they finally closed for good.

Three men stepped out of her tent. The two that had carried her in there and a tall, well built man in a sheriff uniform, with an air of authority that didn't only derive from the uniform. The men paced a short distance towards the RV and stopped a few metres short of the door, where the sheriff then turned round to the others.

"What happened?" he asked sternly, voice more full of harsh concern than pity, eyes darting from one man to the other while he waited for an explanation. The smaller man spoke first.

"We were just in the store, she was looking through the shelf and then she screamed, I don't know what happened but she fell over and hit her head pretty badly." He rushed out, trying to explain as if it was his fault and he was feeling guilty. The sheriff held out his hand to silence him, then turned to the other man.

"You see what happened?" he inquired, looking at the dishevelled man before him. He squinted at the sheriff and spoke.

"Walker must'a spooked her out." He replied in a heavy southern accent. "Saw it and wouldn't stop screamin' till she smacked her head." He told him. The sheriff looked slightly confused but he seemed to understand.

"Well, just gotta leave her to rest for now, get Herschel to have a look at her. She probably just fainted." He deduced before looking at the smaller guy, who'd been looking guiltily at the ground.

"It wasn't your fault." He said simply. "It could have been any of us with her." He told him kindly, before walking off into the centre of the crowd of people to try to spread some positivity amongst the people who'd just witnessed a girl's life possibly hanging in the balance.


	15. Each to their own

As my senses came flooding back to me all at the same time, the crack in my head was sending shockwaves of pain through my head, beating and slapping at my insides. I pulled myself up onto my elbows so I could take a good look around the tent. The light was dim coming through the "window" of the tent, so I could tell that it was mid evening, the orange tinge to the light that was gently pouring through the nylon bathed my face in a warm wash that I would have appreciated much more if my head wasn't trying to explode at the same time.

I raised my fingers up to my head and gingerly touched the cut that had been made...I didn't know how long I'd been unconscious for, whether it had been hours or days. The cut wasn't healed so it stung to the touch, but when I investigated further with my fingers I discovered that my head had been stitched back up, presumably by Herschel. I slowly pulled my hand away and bent my arm back and leaned on my elbows again. At that moment, the zipper for the tent door opened, more light pooled into the flimsy room and Daryl stepped through, his eyes fixed firmly on the floor. He looked up and noticed that I was awake then spoke.

"How you feelin'?" he asked as he walked over to his bed. He hadn't said is loudly, but my head was feeling so delicate every whisper felt like a shout, and his normal voice was close to making my ears bleed.

"Not so loud." I breathed as I squinted my eyes and leaned back, cradling my head. I sighed deeply and looked again.

"Like shit." I responded. "What even happened?" I inquired eyes squeezed shut against the oncoming light. I heard him rustle around with his stuff before he replied.

"Dunno. You started screamin', turned around and you were fallin' to the floor. Cracked your head on the floor, then we threw you in the car and came back. Herschel stitched your head up." He told me as he pulled my glossy red knife out of his pocket to clean it on the towel he kept next to his pillow. I frowned at him, forgetting my pain.

"What're you doing with that?" I asked him indignantly. "Where'd you get that, I had that with me when we went to the store!" I stated, getting angry that he took my knife. He cleaned it and passed it back to me.

"Broke mine." He said simply. "Rick told me it'd be okay to use yours until you woke up as long as I di'nt break it. That was 4 days ago." He finished. 4 days ago? He couldn't be right; there was no way I was out for 4 days.

"I've been out for 4 days?!" I asked him, astounded and horrified. He looked at me and smiled slightly.

"No...that was when I borrowed this." He waved the knife in his hand. "That was 2 days after the store."he informed me. I stared at him with, jaw dropped down totally aghast.

"That face doesn't suit you. You look damn stupid." He pointed out, to which I replied with a disgruntled scowl.

"I've been out cold for 6 days, you've borrowed my knife without my say so and I've had my head sown up. I have a murderous headache and a horrendous stomach ache, probably from not eating for I dunno...6 fucking days, put all of these together and you're not even coming close to how shit I feel, now ask yourself this: Do you really wanna tell me I look like shit?!" I snarled, more out of annoyance than anger. A stinging pang surged through my head and I whined, flopping onto my back. I'm almost certain he would have replied with a similarly angry comeback had I not looked such a sorry sight, so instead he dived into his bag and pulled out a small, rattling pill bottle, it's orange lid was glaringly bright to my poor banging head. He shook it so it rattled; causing my head to hurt even more...I figured this was his little form of revenge for my outburst. Daryl looked up about to throw me the container but stopped, warily observing me and held them. He shook his head at me then spoke.

"You gotta eat first." He told me. I could only assume from that he had some bastard big painkillers in the bottle and I was so desperate for any form of relief that I was willing to comply with almost anything to get some. I took one final look at Daryl and heaved myself up into a sitting position. My limbs felt strange and heavy, but I could only hope to feel better by moving around and getting some food...then taking painkillers. He looked alarmed by my sudden movement while my eyes scanned the tent, searching for my hoodie.

"Where's my hoodie?" I asked him, half expecting to be told that somebody had borrowed it. He looked at me sheepishly and I smirked at him.

"Didn't think women's clothes were your sort of thing...maybe I had you wrong..." I teased him, watching him bristle with indignation.

"I didn't!" he gushed. "I don't want your stupid clothes!" he huffed quickly, trying to silence me before I said anything else while I sat shaking with laughter at the thought. I carried on teasing him as it wasn't this often anyone was in a position of power over Daryl Dixon.

"Carol's dresses too small? What about Andrea, she's more your height, I bet Lori's got some killer heels you could wear..." I spluttered through fits of laughter, pain completely forgotten while he fumed in the corner of the tent.

"If you don't shut up you're gonna need more'n painkillers when I'm through with you." He growled at me as his face turned redder. I laughed even harder.

"Are you blushing? Is Daryl Dixon blushing?! Each to their own I guess." I laughed through tears, but when I saw his face contort with anger and embarrassment I eased up a bit, still giggling feebly a minute later.

"Sorry, sorry...so, where is my hoodie?" I asked him finally, after the giggling rolled to a natural halt and his face returned to its normal colour. He threw me a dirty look then spoke.

"Tried to tell you 'for you started bein' an ass..." he begun, unzipping the tent door and reaching outside, pulling something down from a makeshift washing line that Dale had constructed outside everyone's tents. He returned inside the tent with my once light grey hoodie, now soaking wet, more brown than grey. I looked at it and looked back at him.

"Is that...?" I trailed off. He nodded grimly before I quietly asked another question.

"Is it mine?" I questioned, voice quiet and timid, afraid of the answer. He slowly balled it up and returned it back to where he'd found it before stepping back inside. He just nodded at me and we were both silent for a second.

"You lost a lot of blood." He told me in a hushed voice. "We all thought you'd- you know." He finished, staring at the door of the tent as if he could see through it to the grim reminder of the store run that now hung limply on a washing line outside. I smiled to myself.

"Gonna take a lot more than that to kill me." I told him, before standing slowly up and wandering out of the tent for the first time to visit the concerned faces of all my friends and try to put their minds at ease.

I stepped out of the tent to see the rest of the group just about to begin preparing food for the evening, the women bustling frantically around each other, counting all the plates and ensuring they had enough, the men sitting on the dusty, dry ground, discussing the following day. I breathed in deeply and felt the cold evening air rush through my body, sending chills rippling down my spine and water collecting around my eyes. I wiped away the water with the back of my hand and stared at the scene before me. Despite the hoards of the walking dead, this was probably the happiest I'd ever felt.

Carl was the first one to spot me standing outside the tent, watching the group with the shadow of a smile dancing across my face. He leapt up straight away and bounded over to me, calling my name as he did.

"HARPER!" he squealed cheerfully. The only person he was close to was Sophia and she met a grisly and tragic end, so I didn't like to keep him at arm's length. He threw himself at me and wrapped his arms round my waist in a monster hug, winding me slightly as I did so. I doubled over slightly trying to catch my breath and gingerly wrapped an arm around him as other began to move towards me. Lori was the first over and she peeled Carl's arms off from around my waist.

"Sweetie no, you have to be more gentle until we know she's 100% better." She explained to him kindly. He looked massively disappointed but it was obvious that he understood because he just faced me and beamed at me before he began gabbling away with the enthusiasm that could only come from an excited 12 year old.

"You'll never guess what! Shane took me into the woods and taught me how to use a gun properly and Daryl promised to teach me how to hunt properly so I can go hunting with you guys and my dad said I could carry this gun, see how cool it is?!" he rushed out at 100mph, pulling a tiny handgun out of a holster he wore on his belt, before Lori darted her hand out and forced the gun gently downwards.

"Carl you know you're only supposed to use that in emergencies, put it away." She instructed him firmly. He looked at her sheepishly and apologised before Lori began speaking again.

"Carl, why don't you go help dad, let me and Herschel talk to Harper, make sure she's okay." She said reassuringly so that he'd run off. He nodded at her enthusiastically and scampered off into the camp and flung himself down next to Shane and Rick to sit at the side and listen to their strategising. We both watched him as he ran off and she finally turned back to face me.

"Come on, we need to talk." She said more concerned than anything else, but her voice bordered on stern, and I knew I wasn't in for an average check up.

_**In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not adhering to the events of the TV series as I thought it would be a lot more fun and interesting to basically rewrite it. Hope this is cool with you guys, thanks for reading.**__**-Hannah**_


	16. Setting the record straight

Thankfully, before Lori had made me talk to them, Rick intervened and told her I needed to eat. After eating enough to make myself feel better, she finally got her chance to drag me to the RV. Sat at the cramped, sturdy table in the RV with Dale, Herschel and Lori sat around me with their eyes all determinedly fixed on me. I squirmed under their gaze slightly and looked at the table before Herschel started speaking.

"So, how are you feeling?" Lori asked me with a gentle smile, placing her soft hand over my shaking one. I looked down at it and smiled, first at the hands and then at the faces surrounding me which were awash with concern.

"I'm fine. Really, a lot better since eating." I said, slowly nodding at them. I broke out a quick smile and went to stand up.

"That's not all we wanted to talk to you about..." Dale hastily said before I managed to leave. I slowly sunk back into my shapeless seat so that we could continue the talk. Herschel intercepted the conversation before anybody else could say anything.

"How are the stitches feeling?" he inquired in his comforting southern accent, bright blue eyes piercing through me.

"They're fine, thank you." I replied politely, trying to get out the RV as fast as possible, as I knew whatever Lori wanted to talk to me about, it wouldn't be good. He nodded at me knowingly, eyes still as piercing as ever. Dale began to speak.

"We just want to clear a few things up about your accident...about what happened, we really need to know the details." He told me, concern overriding all other emotions. I nodded and raised my shoulders and hands, inviting questions. He continued talking.

"We know that you and Daryl don't exactly get along all the time..." he explained, touching the tips of his fingers together and laying them delicately on the table, staring intently at them. I frowned at him and he looked up.

"We know you don't exactly get along, so we were wondering-"he continued, until he was interrupted by Lori, who leaned across Dale slightly to get closer to me.

"We were wondering if he'd done that." She finished, pointing to the stitches. I touched them with my fingers, and began to laugh in impatience.

"You think he tried to kill me?" I asked her incredulously, wanting to clarify what she'd just said. She nodded desperately at me, smile fixed determinedly on her face.

"Because you can tell us if it was him, we can move you into another tent, everything will be okay, I promise-"she began until I waved at her, signalling for her to stop.

"No...No, no, no. You've got this entirely wrong." I laughed at her again, this time a little more harshly, until I heard how unfair it must have seemed to her. All she wanted to do was look out for me, but she'd got it all wrong.

"Lori..." I started. "Lori, Daryl's stopped me from becoming walker bait more times than I can count, and we sleep in the same tent every night, if he wanted me dead so badly I'm sure he would've done so by now!" I finished. They didn't seem entirely convinced, but Dale pressed on with the futile investigation.

"So what happened at the store?" he inquired, voice full of anxiety. I looked at him and relived the day in my head, narrating it for Dale so that he'd believe me when I said it wasn't anybody's fault, just an unfortunate accident. He seemed relatively satisfied with what I'd told him, so I pushed the boat out and tried one more time.

"Is that all?" I asked hopefully. The three of them gave each other a look, as if they knew something I didn't...then they looked back at me and smiled then Lori nodded.

"Sure, we've kept you long enough. Get some sleep." She instructed firmly. I scoffed at her, but not unkindly.

"Lori I've been asleep for 6 days, I'm rested enough for now." I said, getting to my feet and sliding out of the booth. I walked out towards the door before Dale spoke out and halted me one last time.

"Harper, remember what I said just after you got here?" he asked me. I racked my brains and couldn't come up with an answer, so I shook my head in all honesty at him.

"Take care of yourself." He repeated eyes boring into me, as if trying to see through me. I thought about this for a second and nodded, before wrenching the door open and hopping out.

I strolled through the cool, cloak of darkness that had fallen over the camp, dying embers in fire spitting out feebly, other sparks fluttering upwards like the last of the fairies that floated up towards a moon that bathed in silver light. I walked towards the tent, hands in my pockets until I reached the washing line that sagged warily in front of the door, weighed down by the mass of grey and brown that was my hoodie. I clamped my hand around it to see if it was still damp, and it wasn't, so I ripped it off the line and unzipped the tent to find Daryl sat upright on his mattress, twiddling my knife between his hands.

"I'm awake now and I'll need that back at some point." I told him with a small smile on my face. He ignored this and just followed me with his eyes.

"What'd Lori want?" he interrogated me. I was taken aback by his question because he rarely took an interest in what I did or who I spoke to. I paused for a few seconds because I didn't want him to know what Lori had basically and unjustifiably accused him of. I finally forced out a badly concealed lie.

"She wanted to run by me what's happened while I've been out." I stuttered. He shook his head and stared intensely at me, lip curling into a slight snarl.

"Never liked liars much." He spat. I looked at him guiltily and apologetically sat down on the floor.

"Sorry...I just don't really want to say, it wasn't particularly nice." I confessed. He raised his eyebrows in exasperation...lots of people got exasperated with me.

"Bein' caught out in a forest with those fuckin' walkers ain't particularly nice either." He reasoned viciously. "Tell me!" he demanded, much like a petulant child. Two words which described Daryl very well.

"FINE!" I raised my voice. "She wanted to know whether this-"I jabbed the air next to my cut with my finger. "-was you or not!" I finished, waiting for his reaction with building anxiety, waiting for him to explode with fury. To my astonishment he started to laugh, shaking his head and throwing himself back onto his bed so he was lying down.

"Stuck up bitch." He finally hissed. I stood up in anger...maybe Lori didn't have a point, but she was a nice person.

"I like Lori! Just because she was a bit worried about me...she had reason to be concerned!" I quickly lied so my conscious didn't have time to process the lie. "We don't exactly see eye to eye!" I exclaimed. I watched him, again trying to gauge his reaction in case I had to make a quick dash for the door.

"Y'irritate the crap outta me, do you really think I'd kill you though?!" he burst out. I stared at him, raised eyebrows, mouth open a little way and I cocked my head.

"I don't know! I really don't! Because you don't seem to like me a whole lot!" It was my turn to explode now. To my utter shock he looked a little offended and then when he spoke his voice was a lot quieter and softer than mine had been.

"There've been at least 7 places and times I could'a easily killed you and I di'nt." He said, still looking up at me from his pillow, arm snaked underneath it, emerging from the other side and leaning his head on. I instantly felt guilty and he saw this, as the reasons he'd just pointed out were in my argument repertoire against Lori.

"I told them that." I said after a few seconds of silence. "You killed the walker the store as well." I told him. He just nodded at me, confirming what I thought I remembered.

"So, are we...you know...okay?" I asked, anxiously, fearing the ridicule I was gonna get from him.

"Guess so." He replied coolly. I was totally taken aback by this and couldn't formulate any words properly for a few seconds so I just gave him a smile.

"Okay then." I quietly said. "When can I have my knife back?" I asked, fearful he was going to keep it.

"When I get a new one." Was his short reply, slightly annoyed by this, I slunk down beneath the covers of my bed and turned away before speaking again.

"Better start looking then, redneck." I said quietly chuckling to myself.

"You're funny." He retorted sarcastically, and I drifted to sleep happy with the knowledge that I could possibly class Daryl as a friend. It was the end of the world, and friends were all I needed.


	17. Coping with possible truths

The next morning brought the camp nothing but angst. It was almost as if everyone in the camp knew what Lori had wrongly and sneakily accused Daryl of doing...and it was almost as if they believed her.

Morning had just broken out over the camp, the cold morning air hit me hard as I stepped out the tent into the more communal area where everybody met for discussions that would ultimately lead to the group's survival, and I watched the chilled camp earth in wait for someone else to get up. I woke up to an empty tent- that wasn't unusual. Daryl preferred to get up early and go into the forest alone and I didn't like early mornings. I let him get on with whatever and the only time I had any real interaction with him was at night or on watch.

Rick had banned me from going out on supply runs since I fainted in the store. I can't say I blamed in, I didn't have the heart to go against him...I didn't even want to go myself anymore. Last time I went I got lucky that Glenn and Daryl were there to stop my ass becoming walker food; the next time I might not get so lucky. I stared at the forest that outlined the camp in a green mass of dense foliage, before making my way towards it. I wanted to go out and hunt, but the one downside with Daryl getting up before me was the fact that he had time while I was dead to the world to "borrow" my knife. As he'd commandeered my knife, I doubled back and hopped into the RV to use a spare one...or at least find one to throw at Daryl. I wanted my one back. I scanned the cabin and saw the black duffle bag that contained a small armoury of guns and knives, and carefully dipped my hand in and extracted a chunky hunting knife with a solid black handle and a curved blade. I had no idea how Daryl managed to break his knife- probably skinning children or something, but I couldn't spare that any thought. I jumped out of the RV that housed the peacefully resting bodies of Beth, Dale and Herschel and retraced my steps back towards the forest.

In the time it had taken me to get the knife from the RV, Lori had woken up and started collecting things to be washed. I wanted to avoid her for a little while, I was still quite annoyed about what she'd said in the meeting we had and I wanted to keep my distance so I didn't explode at her. Unfortunately, she saw me walking and made a beeline for me before I could slither away.

"Good morning!" she chirped, trying to be quiet so as not to disturb anyone else. T-Dog, who was perched as delicately as a man his size could on the watch ledge, turned round at the source of noise, registered it, and turned sleepily back to watching the perimeters of the camp for walkers. I gazed up at him, waiting for Lori to say something instead of replying to her. She noted this but carried on talking anyway.

"Look, I know what you must think about what I said the other night-"she began before I swooped in and cut her off.

"You don't have to explain. Or apologise." I threw a glare at her, because secretly I wanted her to apologise, but not to me. She frowned slightly, her mouth open slightly indignantly.

"What do you mean apologise? I'm not going to apologise..." she started, before I cut her off again.

"Really? You're not gonna apologise to Daryl? He knows what you think about him, and no, I didn't tell him-" I lied quickly, not wanting her to know I relayed everything she said back to him as soon as I'd left.

"He was stood outside the RV and he heard everything. I think you should probably have taken it up with him first." I finished, still glaring intently at her. She bristled with indignation and started talking again.

"Really?! You think I should have given the potential murderer a chance to explain why he tried to kill you?!" she burst out, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. I don't know whether it was part of some elaborate act designed to make me back down, but whatever it was wasn't going to work.

"Potential murderer?!" I hissed, lowering my voice so that the whole camp didn't wake up. "Not only has he not tried to murder anyone, sorry to fucking disappoint you but he's-"I stopped, deflating. I didn't want to say "He's my friend." Because I didn't know how I felt about that sentence coming out of my mouth, so I compromised and forced a different one out.

"But he's teaching Carl to hunt at some point. I suppose you only trust him when it best suits you." I spat, turning on my heels and storming off into the forest, still blood soaked hoodie billowing out behind me.

"You can't wear that, it's still got your blood all over it." She sighed, trying to follow me. I turned furiously one last time to face her.

"LORI." I raised my voice and forced the word out. "I'm not your problem! What I do, what I wear, that's ME!" I told her loudly, spitting the words out like poison. She looked stung by my outburst and looked down while wringing the towel she was holding in her hands. She frowned and spoke softly.

"No...No, of course you aren't...sorry." she apologised before brushing sadly past me, eyes lowered to the muddy floor. I sighed and dropped her from my thoughts. Cruel, but I had to survive, and Lori's feelings weren't going to help me do that. I stalked towards the forest, silently praying as I always did that I didn't run into anything worse than a pissed off racoon.

Silence. I'd been sitting in silence for a good hour, crouched delicately near a pile of woodland berries I'd picked off a random bush whose branches were bursting with the tiny red balls, watching. I watched the pile intently; eyes fixed on it with an iron stare, thinking. I twiddled the chunky knife in my hand, waiting for something to take the bait and meet a grisly end. I thought long and hard about whether I was going to apologise to Lori or not, mulling over both the conversations in my head. She'd been wrong about Daryl, I was certain of it...but no matter how many times I told myself she was wrong, there was a dark corner in my head telling me she was right, and it was growing. I've been sharing a tent with him for a few weeks now, surely if he wanted me dead he would have snapped my neck, slit my throat...suffocated me. I'm certain that he could have killed me quickly and efficiently...but it would have been too obvious. They would have realised straight away and that would have been the end of Daryl Dixon.

Maybe Lori was right...maybe he did want me dead.


	18. Swapping places with the prey

About 3 hours after my suspicions had grown and wormed their way further towards the front of my brain and festered like putrid worms I heard a noise. A twig snapped, and some snuffles began scampering out of the undergrowth. A possum emerged from a small huddle of bushes, its nose pressed firmly against the ground, rubbing around in an attempt to figure out the source of the intoxicating smell that radiated from the berries, leading it closer and closer to the end of my knife. It reached the pile and paused, then rapidly began gorging itself. I stopped to admire it for a few seconds, the intelligence and design that went into crafting it's every miniscule part, before an arrow ripped right through the poor creature's skull, erupting out the other side and digging into the dirt. The possum slumped, almost comically for a second then I saw its face. Its tiny, fear stricken face and I felt incomprehensibly sad. I swivelled my head to the side to see Daryl walking towards it and when he got to it, he bent down and while resting one foot on the head he pulled the arrow out of it before looking up at me, bemused that I was sat there in a bush with mud smeared across me sweat streaked face. We stared at each other for a few seconds as we were both trying to understand the situation, watching each other in total silence. Finally, as I was crouching down in the dirt staring up at him, eyes wide and surprised, I spoke.

"Um...Hello." I said, full of dull surprise that he was stood in front of me. It was a big forest, and I was hugely surprised that we'd run into each other again.

Maybe he was following me. I quickly pushed that thought away, because he looked equally as surprised as I was...and he certainly wasn't an actor.

"I'm...sitting in this bush." I informed him, still stunned that he was there.

"Can see that." He replied before picking up the dead possum and tying it to a string of equally as mangled animals, dangling depressingly across his arm. He skulked off and I leapt to my feet, still confused as hell and followed him.

"That was mine." I grumbled, trailing after him, wiping some of the sweat from my face with the sleeve of my hoodie.

"Need any help?" He paused and turned to look at me, confused look plastered across his scarred face. The confused face suddenly turned to anger and the universal look everybody shares when they think "Oh shit." And he shouted at me.

"DOWN!" he yelled. When you're in a life or death situation every single day of your life you quickly learn to do whatever you're told...without question. I threw myself on the floor and as I was falling I felt a rush of air blow over my head as an arrow shot past me and embed itself deep between the eyes of a slender, decomposing walker woman. I turned to thank Daryl for once again, but instead of thanking him I rested my eyes on a huge walker that was creeping up on him, shuffling silently through the grass behind him. When you or someone near you is in danger it's true what they say...everything slows down. Everything felt slower as I took two steps desperately towards him and grabbed a handful of his shirt, which I used to pull him behind me with. With my other hand I clutched the handle of the knife and plunged it into the skull of the offending creature, blood streaming from its head as it fell to the earth. Then, everything returned to normal speed and I turned, eyes glazed over to stare at Daryl. We both looked at each other for a brief moment, thanking each other until the situation took a turn for the worse and gradually began to spiral out of control.

As our eyes darted away from each other we were forced to step closer to each other as the trees all around us began rustling ominously, and walkers began to appear all around us, lust filling their empty eyes as they closed in on us.

"You bring your gun with you?" I asked him in a voice slightly more audible than a whisper, not trying to look at him as we'd had to go back to back so that we could see all the surrounding threats. I felt him tense up around his crossbow, drawing it up to his face.

"Not today...got yours?" he replied almost as quietly, not allowing concern to factor in his voice. I felt the handle of the silver gun I had stowed away in my waistband.

"Yeah, but I didn't bring anywhere near enough rounds to deal with this..."I trailed, panic beginning to set in as they stumbled closer and closer, moaning noises boring into my head, forcing fear further and further towards the front of my brain.

"On the count of three." I heard him whisper, not wanting to push the walkers into full scale frenzy. My silence was confirmation enough to him that I was prepared to leap into action at the end of the count.

"1...2..." he began the count, and I steeled myself against the oncoming hoard of about 25 walkers and I made my peace with the man upstairs.

"3!" he shouted. As he shouted the final number, we both leapt apart as if we'd been spring loaded and charged with a thousand volts. I drew the gun and began firing shots into the skulls of various corpses, the air a mess of red and black mist, barrel already smoking with the heat of the unleashing of a barrage of bullets. On the other side of the clearing we were stood in I glimpsed Daryl fighting off 3 at the same time, burying an arrow clean through the heads of two corpses at the same time, throwing all his effort into raising the knife hard through the jaw of another. I swerved away from a walker that tried to throw itself on top of me and I lost my balance then fell heavily to the ground, momentarily winded. I drove the knife I was holding in my spare hand up into the side of a walker's head, as it had fallen on top of me and was brandishing its ugly face in mine and gnashing teeth right against my cheek.

As the enormous weight on top of me suddenly stopped moving, another came over and piled on top, grinding its teeth against thin air as it smelled my fear and blood dance tantalisingly in the air around its muddled and deceased head. I wrenched the knife from the first walker's head and plunged it into the other corpse that lay on top. Unfortunately the first walker prevented me from getting a clean shot of its head, so I had to rip the knife out of where it landed- its throat- and released a bullet into the temple of its skull. I tried feebly to roll the corpses off me and after much struggling and wriggling I threw them off, only to be ambushed by three more. I sidestepped them all and towards Daryl, who was still fighting a small group of them off with his rapidly depleting arrows, once scarlet knife now stained entirely dark glistening red, almost black. I disposed of a walker that was about 8 inches from sinking its filthy fangs into the side of his neck, and shouted over the moaning.

"THERE'S TOO MANY!" I screamed at him, kicking another one back and shooting it in the head before turning back to check Daryl was still alive. He was a bit busy decapitating a child walker, a sight that still haunts me to remember. When he turned to me his face was gaunt, contorted with blood, dirt and shadow. We hadn't noticed more walkers flock towards the source of the considerable noise we were making, so we were quickly becoming more and more surrounded, more and more fucked. I looked straight ahead and saw a possible way out of the conundrum we were in...or certain death.


	19. Talks with the man upstairs

"THE TREE!" I screamed in desperation, I swirled left and right to try and scope out how many walkers there were between us any possible exits. Daryl spun to face me and stabbed the red, blood drenched knife into the eye socket of another walker before looking at me angrily.

"THERE'S MORE'N ONE FUCKIN' TREE!" he yelled back at me before lining two rotting corpses up and sending an arrow flying through their heads. I was desperately trying to get us both out of there without something horrific happening to one of us and our options were very limited without leading them straight back to the camp and endangering all the people I loved. I could see him thinking the same as me, his face shrouded in a calculating, cold mask that worried me.

"THAT FUCKING TREE!" I retorted madly, jabbing my finger at the thickest tree I could see, the one that had about 200 branches we could climb up. I hoped to god that walkers couldn't climb. We both turned to shoot two walkers at the same time, the wet noise of a slim wooden arrow puncturing a skull and tearing through the fleshy brain mingled with the resonating noise of my second to last bullet ripping through the bones of another walker. He nodded calmly at me and we began to force our way through the pack of slow moving walkers, dodging and sidestepping murderous claws and infectious teeth.

We reached the colossal tree trunk and Daryl gave me a boost with both of his hands up the solid hunk of living wood so that I could reach the first branch, before turning round and meeting a walker with a knife rammed into the ear. He twisted the knife and pulled it out, showering the tree trunk in chilled, dead blood. I wrapped my legs around the tree branch I was lying on and bent as far as I could to reach Daryl. I grabbed his hand and hauled him upwards before a large, black walker forced him into a corner. I poured all of my effort and strength into getting him onto the branch...poxy crossbow weighed a tonne. I finally got him high up enough for him to grab the branch himself and gain balance. I started to relax against the tree trunk as we were just out of the reach of the walkers but it seemed that Daryl had other ideas. He balanced himself, crouching low on the branch and stepped towards me before grabbing me round the waist and basically throwing me upwards into the next branch.

"COULD HAVE JUST SAID." I yelled, but he ignored me and carried on climbing.

"Higher up we go... less they'll wanna... eat us." He gasped, through the huge effort he was putting into climbing. Even though I was tired and my limbs were on fire, I knew he was right. Sighing and making a pained face, I stretched out and began to follow Daryl up the mighty tree, as he'd overtaken me and was making fast progress in scaling the branches to safety.

Looking down I noticed that although they were pawing at the tree and staring up at us, filthy mouths open in grotesque leers, they weren't trying to climb the tree as they lacked the coordination to do so, as they watched us climb in empty rage after being cheated of their meal. I placed one of my bruised, scratched palms flat against the sturdy trunk and craned my neck back to see how far ahead of me Daryl had climbed. He was at least 12 foot ahead of me, so I started to pick up my pace, one hand after the other, my feet climbing in sync with my hands. It became a comforting rhythm as I still had a crippling fear of heights, it lulled me into a nice sense of comfort. Hand, foot, hand, foot...

Finally, I arrived at the sturdiest branch we could sit on at the top, overlooking the less than pleasant fate that would've awaited us had we fallen. I climbed a little higher than Daryl, but only to the branch just above and perched on it, daintily resting my feet on the branch he had his legs wrapped round, crossbow slung over the end of it like a heavy duty mobile. I removed my tree scarred hoodie and wrapped it several times round my waist, crossing and wrapping, crossing and wrapping it until I was firmly tied to the branch. I looked up when I was done and grinned at Daryl, and he just glowered back at me. My smile dropped.

"Cheer up." I told him. "We're alive, aren't we?" I challenged him, daring him to defy that logic. He just continued to glower at me.

"Dunno for how much longer though. What d'you suppose we do now?" he retorted, clearly having reservations about being stuck up a 30 metre tree with a 16 year old girl. I looked down at the pack and shrugged.

"Well I don't know. I sort of figured it'd come to me when we got up here, but I've got nothing." I confessed. He let out a small laugh and shook his head, then an eerie silence fell between us.

"Do you think..."I began, before I choked up slightly and couldn't get the words out. He glanced up at me and I tried again.

"Do you think this is it?" I choked the words out, quietly. I was genuinely afraid at the time that we might not get back to the bottom of the tree, and if we didn't we wouldn't be in the same was as we went up. He just continued to look at me, but this time he met my gaze with his eyes and I could see that he didn't know either.

"As good a day as any." He told me. Even though I'd felt my heart plummet when I saw his face, his reaction to our situation, I felt strangely consoled by his words. It was as good a day as any...all we were going to do forever was run away from walkers until finally one of them got us, we were all alluding ourselves- there was no way out. There wasn't a silver lining, that was that, death was inevitable and we certainly weren't going to be allowed to live into our old age...deep down we all knew it though. I leaned my head against the trunk and shut my eyes while moving my lips in silent prayer.

"You prayin'?" he asked me, interrupting me. I opened one eye and smiled before replying.

"Yeah. I figured you would be too." I told him. "You know. End of the world and all that." I said with a slightly sour tinge in my voice. Not because he interrupted me, but because I didn't want to be praying, I didn't want it to be the end. Not yet.

"Not very good at it to be honest." He confessed, looking a little embarrassed. I opened both eyes and stared at him.

"You can't be bad at praying. All you do is apologise and just...try and make peace. Funnily enough I don't do this whole praying-at-the-end-of-my-life thing very often." I levelled with him. He smirked and caught my eyes once more with his.

"What're you praying for?" he asked. I didn't even blink before answering.

"That's between me and him." I said, pointing towards the sky. Looking upwards made me feel queasy, so I looked back at the branch I was on and frowned. He just carried on looking at me and I gave in, the shadow of a smile flickering across my otherwise forlorn face.

"Dear God, the only thing I ask of you..." I began, before Daryl cut me off, frown on his face.

"Nope...heard that before somewhere." I grinned at him sheepishly before telling him the truth.

"Okay, I was praying and singing in my head, it's Avenged Sevenfold. The words just seemed a little appropriate...they're a band." I assured him, after a look of confusion ran across his face when I said the name.

"Want me to carry on?" I asked him as I hoped he would decline. Thankfully he did.

"No, you got this one." He said, lightly tapping the shoe I was resting on the branch he sat on with one finger. He looked up at me as I ran through the song I'd tried to trick him with in my head before speaking.

"We're gonna die, ain't we?" Daryl asked matter-of-factly. I looked down, stunned that he could be so calm about it then I thought carefully about why he was being so chilled. He didn't have anybody left, from what I'd gathered his brother had been killed, his parents were long gone and he didn't really have friends at the camp. I may have been the closest thing to a friend he had which was slightly worrying. Contemplating this, I looked at him again and thought to myself...maybe that's the best way to live now. No friends, no loved ones...nobody. I watched him as he fiddled with his knife, gouging chunks of bark out of the branch he was sitting on, evidently feeling pretty sorry for himself.

No. That's no way to live.

"No Daryl, we're not going to die up a tree. What the fuck kind of wuss do you take me for?" I jokingly demanded to know, some truth behind the harsh tones in my voice. He looked back up at me in an expression that wasn't shock but bemusement, I'd been close to tears ten seconds ago and now I was making jokes and telling him everything would be okay.

"Well, I'm going to live anyway, might have to feed you to the walkers but only a limb or two." I joked, trying to lighten the atmosphere. He just smiled at me.

"Can't even tell whether you're kiddin' or not." He told me and we both laughed for a few seconds, in the lightest moment we'd had since we got into the damn forest. Silence fell once again on us, except for the low and quiet moaning of the corpses at the base of the tree.

"Guess we just...wait." I deduced as I attempted to count the number of walkers still swarming the mighty tree's roots, while Daryl just nodded shortly at me.

"Guess so." He replied.

I don't really remember what we talked about, or for how long we talked. I do remember though, that it got dark. Fast. As the sun began to power down, the moon rose, crashing a silver light over the tree canopy and forced the last of the day animals into hiding. A chill fell, wrapping me in the coldest shroud of a new night and forcing Daryl to tie some of the leaves from the huge tree we were taking refuge in around his arms with rope that he'd fashioned from the innermost bark of the wood, where it became thin and stringy. The darkness was upon us faster than we realised, but most of the corpses had long since wandered off, trying to find another easy meal to hunt down and brutally murder. There were still a few left waiting for us, but they were so far away from us at the bottom of the tree it was too dark for me to make out a number. I prodded a close to sleeping Daryl, who was leaning nonchalantly against the trunk as if he wasn't in any danger whatsoever, and was merely reclining on a warm summer morning.

"They've started to fuck off." I whispered, urgently. "We could leave now!" I said excitedly, happy that we weren't gonna die. He lazily cast his eyes down to the bottom of the high pedestal of wood we were on and back to me.

"Reckon we can take 'em in the dark?" he asked, one eyebrow raised. "More to the point, reckon you can take 'em in the dark?" he quizzed me, slight smirk. My eyebrows furrowed at his question.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" I inquired, blinking rapidly in fear because I thought he was going to tell me that he couldn't see in the dark or that he'd totally run out of arrows. Or that he was bored and wanted to watch me do it.

"I can hit 'em in the dark...just you that ain't so good at that." He smirked. I raised my eyebrows and hit him lightly on the shoulder.

"I'll be fine." I assured him. "Now...I guess we get back to camp." It must have been at least 1am, it had been dark for a while and I was really hoping that we wouldn't be mistook for walkers upon reentering the camp and shot by whoever was on watch.

If we made it back to camp. I didn't want to entertain the idea that we might not make it, but I couldn't deny it was a definite possibility. Even though the walkers had impaired sight at night and couldn't find us as easily, it was the same story for us and we didn't have the same keen sense of smell. I unwrapped the hoodie that bound me to the tree and stuffed my arms into the sleeves, even though they were so torn up they were basically useless. I nodded at Daryl, who had groggily wobbled to his feet on the branch, and he looked at me with a bored expression and began to reverse the process, lowering himself down the tree. I realised he would be the first person to get to the floor, so I unhooked his crossbow from the tree and passed it down to him.

"You might need this." I told him, amused that he'd managed to forget something so important. He looked at it, grabbed it and grunted at me but he continued climbing down from the enormous height we'd reached. I began to follow him, struggling slightly because small twigs and branches were scratching my arms and face, cutting me, gouging lumps out of my arms and neck and I had my gun in my right hand. I was ready for what was waiting at the bottom.

After minutes of clambering rapidly down from our hiding place, listening to the moans get louder and louder, until finally we were close enough to start picking them off...and that's exactly what Daryl did. He began firing arrows that he'd made from the tree down through the skullcaps of the bumbling walkers and one by one they fell, as silent as the moment they'd sneaked up on us. About 6 foot from the ground, I noticed a walker that hadn't seen me so I seized the opportunity to fall from the tree, plunging the my handle of my gun deep into its brain as I fell. The walker broke my fall so I got up and carried on stabbing out at various walkers until they were all lying on the cold, damp floor, barely recognisable as once human. We heard more shuffling lamely in the distance and groaning, the silhouettes dancing dismally on the floor as they swum in moonlight. We ran.

I don't know how long we ran for either, it must have been at least 10 minutes, because when we reached the edge of the forest and saw the dull glow that was still coming from the long extinguished campfire my lungs were close to collapse and my head was spinning. I jogged on awkwardly, slumping over slightly to dull the pain that was firing through my insides, spreading and filling me with a burning sensation. Daryl wasn't in such good shape either, ten minutes of solid running hadn't done him any good as he was half jogging and half shuffling, trying his hardest to escape the walkers that weren't coming for us anymore. We eventually stopped running (or trying to) and just ambled slowly towards the camp, both in excruciating pain from the cold that was coming from the air mixing with the fire that was lighting our skins and insides ablaze, destroying us and constricting our lungs.

We approached the long dry straight that connected the camp to the road that we'd been shuffling along and our desperately tired shuffling became excited and fast paced walks as we were still not up for running properly. Daryl suddenly clutched his side in the same place my scar was on, and he started to bend over slightly as he walked as he was clearly struggling massively with a bad stitch. I was panting so hard from the excessive running I hadn't properly noticed him struggling but I was did notice the familiar figure of Andrea stir slightly on the watch ledge.

I also noticed the shot ring out, and I noticed Daryl fall to the floor and cease moving.


	20. Knowing who your friends are

Shock. When Daryl hit the dusty road and stopped moving I really didn't know what to do, so I just stood there, eyes wide and shaking with my mouth hanging open, horrified. When my senses finally hit me I fell to the floor next to him and started clumsily attempting to check his pulse with my shaking hands. I literally couldn't believe I'd just seen a living person- my friend- get shot in front of my very eyes, just when I thought we'd managed to survive. I heard the hurried footsteps of Andrea and 3 other people who'd burst out of their tent at the sound of the bullet; you don't use bullets on watch, something was wrong. I heard the feet pattering up behind me and I swivelled round hastily to see Rick, Dale and T-Dog, led by a concerned-faced Andrea. I stared at her with a mixture of shock and anger.

"WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE?!" I screamed, still trying desperately to take a pulse from my friend who was lying, possibly dying unceremoniously on the ground in front of me. She looked at me with pity first, then it turned to indignation.

"I DIDN'T MEAN TO HURT DARYL...WHO THE FUCK WALKS LIKE THAT ANYWAY?!" She shouted back at me. I was so furious with her I leapt to my feet, momentarily forgetting Daryl and just concentrated on inflicting as much pain on her with my bare hands as possible. Rick saw me tense and leap up to attack her, so he dived in between us and grabbed me by the shoulders, swinging round to behind me so that he was restraining my shoulders but still facing that bitch Andrea.

"She didn't mean it, take it easy." He said quietly in my ear, trying his best to calm me as I was in the most uncooperative mood.

And I was about ready to murder another member of the group.

Dale meanwhile, was crouching with T-Dog next to the lifeless body of Daryl, checking for a pulse as my fingers had been shaking too much to do so. He looked up at the scene of me being held back by Rick, and Andrea ready to defend herself against me in case I broke free, he looked horrified but a ray of hope shone through his voice.

"He's alive, I've got a pulse but it's faint, we've got to get him into the RV as fast as we can." He informed us. I relaxed my muscles so that Rick would know I was ready to be released and I spun round to face Dale and T-Dog.

"He's alive?" I asked, shocked and overwhelmed by the events of the day as I hoped I'd heard him properly. Dale stared back at me, nodding rapidly.

"Yes, he's alive, we need to get him back to camp right now though or he might not make it." He told me honestly. T-Dog stood up and walked over to me, putting one of his massive paws on my shoulder and using it to roughly push me along with.

"C'mon, we'll go get the SUV." He told me. I was reluctant to leave Daryl alone, even though I knew Rick, Andrea and Dale would be there, because I felt that after all the times he'd looked out for me (even if some of them had been accidental) I owed him massively. Regardless of my personal feelings, I let T-Dog take run with me to camp so that we could get the SUV and transport Daryl more safely. T-Dog turned to me once we'd sat down in the mint green car.

"The hell happened out there? How come you're only just getting back, it's 2am!" he exclaimed. I looked at him wearily.

"Surrounded. Had to climb a tree. Stayed there." I quietly told him, voice leaking with fatigue from just how tired I was, coupled with the raw emotion I'd been experiencing in the last few minutes. I noticed T-Dog look at me out of the corner of my eye as he was driving the minute drive to where the incident had happened.

"Why do you care so much about what happens to him?" he asked me, genuinely interested in what I had to say for myself. I screwed all of my thoughts up into one big muddle, all the feelings I had and all of my reasons for having them with the memories I'd created since joining the camp. I thought about what Lori had accused Daryl of, and how wrong I'd been to dismiss them so readily, but how massively, stupidly, utterly ridiculous I'd been to entertain them for longer than a minute. By the time I answered T-Dog, my mind was like an unwound ball of string, creased and scratched by an unruly kitten, knots still stuck fast in its intricate line.

"Because he's my friend." I told him, finally getting the words out. It was strange; not that I had friends, but because I'd managed to finally say it out loud. He was my friend, and I was going to do everything in my power to help him. T-Dog smirked at my words and I glared at him. He couldn't see me glaring because it was too dark and he was busy grinding the car to a halt, but he must have felt my intense stare because he threw me an apologetic smile, face illuminated by the blue lights that radiated from the dashboard, before stepping out of the SUV and jogging over to the motionless- but still alive- Daryl.

The three that were crouched by him all stood up when we arrived and stepped back for us to get through.

"The bullet went in there, so be careful with that part." Dale instructed Rick and T-Dog as he pointed to the dark red stain that was creeping its way across Daryl's shirt, and in the centre was a small, singed hole, right above his left kidney. Sort of funny how things work like that, I thought to myself while hovering a hand above my own sleeping scar. Rick nodded at Dale and then looked at T-Dog, before they both walked round the inactive body on the floor to pick him up.

"Right you heard him, let's be careful...Harper, you try and put pressure on the wound." He commanded, before leaning over and readying himself to pick up Daryl's upper half, signalling for T-Dog to do the same with the lower. Once again I was shocked and couldn't think for myself, until Andrea nudged me and I snapped back to life. After I threw her a scowl I ripped my already tarnished hoodie off and tied it round Daryl's waist, tightening it so that it stopped the worst of the blood. I wondered how pissed off Daryl would be if he were conscious, pissed off that instead of dying in action, he got shot by a woman. I realised I was thinking as if there was a chance he might not wake up...that couldn't be right. I shook the thoughts from my mind as they piled him into the back of the SUV which was used more as an ambulance nowadays than a car. Rick and T-Dog climbed into the driver and passenger sides and sped off, leaving Dale, Andrea and I stood in the middle of a long dusty straight to wrap our heads around what had just happened. Andrea turned to me so that she could berate me before we got back to camp.

"I don't know who the fuck you think you are getting all indignant that I ACCIDENTALLY-" she put extreme emphasis on the word indignantly before continuing."-shot him, it was dark, he was moving like a walker...you're lucky I didn't shoot you as well!" she exclaimed.

"I'm LUCKY?! I'm really really lucky aren't I? I'm just a huge fucking barrel of luck, my luck never fucking runs out does it?!" I exploded, outraged that she'd called me lucky before continuing my rant.

"I'VE ALREADY BEEN SHOT YOU TOTAL BITCH, AND I CAN HONESTLY SAY IT'S NOT AN EXPERIENCE I WANT TO GO THROUGH AGAIN, OR IN FACT ONE THAT I WOULD WISH UPON ANYBODY ELSE, HOW LUCKY AM I NOW?!" I began shouting, even louder than before. Dale feebly tried to intervene.

"Come on, this isn't helping anything-"but I waved my hand at him to silence him and he just looked astounded. I ignored him and carried on verbally attacking Andrea, only I wasn't shouting anymore.

"You wanna call me lucky, go ahead, say I'm lucky, but you weren't the one that was run up a tree yesterday for fuck knows how many hours, praying that it would end quickly. You need to get your head out of your arse and fucking apologise to him when he wakes up." I spat at her, voice so full of venom that even a snake wouldn't have crossed tongues with me. Dale put a hand on my shoulder and turned me to face him.

"Please don't get your hopes up for him, I'm not a doctor but-"I cut him off again before he could finish as I was so full of all the worst emotions: anger, upset, worry and confusion.

"No, Dale. You're not a doctor. You're not a guy that's done medicine and you know as much about the human body as I do, so please, before you try to tell me that there's a chance he might not live ask yourself this; do you really know any more than I do?" I finished, hints of pleading in my voice as I tried to cling to the hope that he would live. Friends were few and far between and I didn't want to lose one...especially one that had saved my ass on several occasions, not least of which today. Andrea turned away from me, face mostly expressionless but with eyes full of fiery rage and started jogging back to camp so as to be away from me for as fast as possible. Dale just stared after her for a few seconds and then turned to me as I stared at the floor that was now flecked with the blood of one of us, a survivor. I looked up at him as tears worked their way to my eyes, not only in sadness that my friend had nearly been killed, but also the pure and raw emotions that I'd kept quiet during our time in the tree...the time that I was convinced would be the last time I had on earth. It was strange to come back from that point, and everything looked a whole lot different now that I had. He jerked his head back up the dusty road towards the camp.

"You coming?" he asked me, voice not full of anger or resent but understanding and kindness. I just breathed heavily and nodded as I bent to pick up the beaten up crossbow that had been carelessly left at the end of all things. I slung the strap over my shoulder and with it strapped firmly to my back, and with that we made our way back towards the slumbering camp.


	21. Everyone started somewhere

_**Third person narrative.**_

A busy shop floor, Bloomingdale's to be precise; the bustle of everyday activity filled the huge showroom with a buzz that could only be created on a hectic Saturday morning. The extensive amount of products reached out into the farthest corners of the imagination, offering customers the chance to explore the parameters of human intelligence and discover just what the newest, latest item was so that they could dream of one day possessing it and taming it to their every whim. Mothers pulled their sticky fingered toddlers along, in a rush to get the kids clothing done and out of the way so that they could begin packing for not too distant holidays, couples browsed the jewellery counter in awe and lonely shoppers wandered blissfully through the many racks of clothing, seeking out a new persona amidst the countless hangers.

A teenage girl stood straight upright, falsely sweet smile plastered across her otherwise content face as she sported the black polo shirt and long black trousers that removed her identity, replacing it with the neatly tailored uniform of a friendly, faceless organisation that had its name embroidered upon her chest in elegant blue script. She stood at the jewellery counter and waited to spring into action, ready to answer any question that a clueless client may throw at her. She inhaled deeply through her nose, as the pleasant aroma that emanated from the perfume counter not 5 metres away wafted delicately towards the counter, invading the space around her and coating everything in a sweet, flowery smell. The look on her face said that she enjoyed working there as she enjoyed smiled serenely and waited.

Without warning the glass door buckled, and the glass that was plated inside it came crashing down, throwing shards of spiky, transparent pain flying through the air. The girl ducked down beneath the counter because although she was on the other end of the room, human nature prevailed and she dropped to the floor. Peering up to take a closer look at what was going on, she noticed that about 11 people had been caught in the blast and were now lying or sitting on the floor in front of the windowless doorframe, skin dyed by dark red blood. Two figures stumbled through the frame from the outside and landed on a young man that was lying on the floor, leg covered in blood, the skin on his arms slashed to pieces. The figures were two young men- not much older than the girl- but there was definitely something strange about them. The girl squinted her eyes to try and see more clearly, and then she caught on what was wrong. Her eyes darted to the man on the right, and she noticed that his face was sunken and white, his mouth covered in dark red blood. The teeth in the dark hole of his mouth were jagged and broken, the eyes were further back into his skull than normal human beings and they had a look of wild desperation. His hair was matted and he had massive, gaping gouges all over his body, wounds that would have proved fatal on most people were scattered all over him as simply as paper cuts.

The two figures landed on the man in the door, and immediately the air was filled with a blood curdling shriek. The man screamed in terror as the two figures buried their faces in his chest and neck, digging their jagged teeth into the tender flesh on his throat. Soon, he stopped screaming and flailing and went limp, the creatures still feasting upon his dead body. Everybody around observed spellbound, in total shock as they were rendered motionless by the horrific scene that was unfurling in front of them. Everything was silent except the sound of the alarm ringing, and the noises the creatures were making as they tucked into eating the man's limbs and vital organs, his body now spread over the floor like a broken pasty. Suddenly, the silence was broken by a woman's terrified shriek as she ran towards the barely recognisable corpse that had once lay screaming. She was stood silenced by a third figure running through the doors, digging its horrible teeth into her face and she went limp.

The rest of the shop stirred, and suddenly screams filled the air as a barrage of the flesh-eating people ran through the front doors and began murdering people in cold blood left, right and centre. The girl that sat behind the counter dived back down underneath the counter and pulled the phone cord that dangled temptingly in front of her off the desk. She dialled '911' her hands shaking from pure terror and the line was disconnected, no dial tone to comfort her, just endless nothing. Tears of fright began rolling down her face as she pushed the phone aside and scrambled up from behind the counter, frantic steps breaking into a full on run.

She heard a groan from behind her and saw the woman who had shrieked at the zombies staring directly at her, the left side of her face a bloodied mess and blood dribbling down her cheek. The girl extended an arm out to her.

"Look, I can help you! If you come with me I can get you to safety and somebody can look at that for you, I promise!"She began to sob as the tears dried up and the crying became vocal spasms. The woman looked at her arm and staggered towards her, but she didn't look at all grateful. Instead, she tried to sink her teeth into the flesh on the girl's arm until she roughly snatched it back.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU!" she shouted, as the woman lunged at her one more time, forcing her against an electronics counter, price tags digging deeply into her back. She grabbed the woman's face and tried to hold her snapping jaws away from her, noticing that her iris' had turned a milky white colour, and her pupils were nonexistent. The girl kept sobbing as people ran past her, chased by other creatures like the one that was pinning her against a counter attempting to sink its dirty fangs into her face. She frantically reached out with one arm, fingers scrabbling to find something to hit the woman away with and they found something heavy and black. She turned her head to look at what she'd found and it was a small portable DVD player. She turned again to look at the woman, who she was now struggling against with only one hand, and she clasped the DVD player firmly in her hand and spoke.

"I'm trying to...help you" she said feebly through sobs as she swung the small black weight at the creature's head, causing a cracking sound and the woman to stagger away. She jumped up and ran to the staff corridor that was now crowded with humans and creatures alike, desperately trying to find a way out...or find something living to eat. She looked at the devastation that was storming on in the corridor and she decided she couldn't face running through it and having to see the faces of the dead and risk seeing any of her work colleagues, so she ran back out front to be greeted by a large black mass, covered head to toe in riot gear and spraying bullets wildly into the crowd.

The army had arrived.

She ran back towards the corridor just as the mass was separating to unleash a barrage of rounds in different parts of the store. She burst back into the corridor and was held up by a creature lunging at her, eyes thick with desperation as the scent of her living blood flowed through its nostrils, sending it insane through bloodlust. She'd just fought off this aggressive creature when the door burst open, and the shadowy, dark corridor was filled with sunlight, but it was blocked and tainted by the black armour of the military.

"On the count, 3, 2, 1..." said one of the men, calmly to the others. She was astounded how somebody could be so calm in a scene so unruly and so violent, but soon those thoughts were wiped out of her brain as she realised what was about to happen. She leapt up and made a sprint towards the end of the long corridor towards the big, metal doors that led towards the warehouse. The corridor felt a lot longer when she was being dogged by guns, and she was relieved and terrified to reach the doors at the end which promised escape.

"STOP!" somebody shouted at her, but she didn't want to, she couldn't afford to. She wrenched the double doors open and began to move into them, when a series of shots rang out and a blindingly hot flash of pain ripped through her side. She staggered through the doors in pure agony into the middle of the humungous grey room before falling to her knees, watched by the beady eyes of the military. She collapsed from all the unbearable pain and fear, unconscious, before the man who'd shot her smirked and slowly exited the room, closing the big doors on her, unaware that she would wake up days later and be thrown mercilessly into a world she no longer understood.


	22. Defying the Reaper

POV Harper

Over the next few days, the tension between myself and Lori had been at an all time high. She was still convinced that Daryl was trying to murder me, even though he was lying at death's door and I kept telling her she was wrong.

"How ideal would it have been for Daryl if you'd just died in the woods the other day?! For all you know he got those walkers out there ready for you to walk into!" She kept telling me over and over again like a broken record. I held up my hand and silenced her as we sat by the creek with Carol and Shane, washing dishes and clothes. I figured it would be better for our friendship if I came and worked with her at some point to show willing, so I sat by a pile of filthy plastic plates and cups listening to her go on and on about how Daryl kept trying to stab, maul, shoot or suffocate me.

"Lori can I stop you there?" I asked her, hand still up to keep her quiet. She stopped in mid rant and stared at me, expecting me to continue. I put my hand down and carried on with the dishes for a few seconds then looked back up at her.

"No I didn't have a follow up for that; I just wanted you to stop talking." I told her in all honesty as Shane suppressed a laugh at my rudeness. She didn't find it as funny.

"Oh, you think this is a joke?! You think it's a joke that someone's trying to murder you?!" she flared up, challenging me. I looked wearily at her and dipped a purple plastic dish into the water in front of me. The creek was separated into two convenient bowls of water- one massive one that we used for drinking and washing ourselves in and a little pond that we used for washing everything else in. Various things in the water would bob up and eat the leftover food we had, or other animals would come along during the night and scour the pond for an easy meal. It was cleaner than you think. I wiped the plate under the water and spoke without looking at her, as I was trying to keep my cool for a while after I nearly attacked Andrea on the road.

"Does Rick know about your theories?" I inquired as innocently as possible. She was silent and I threw her a glance. "I'll take that as a no then." I finished. Shane stepped into the conversation and surprisingly enough took my side.

"Lori, maybe Harper's right. She seems to know him more than you do anyhow." He said, glancing up at her then smiling quickly at me. I grinned gratefully at him and turned back to her.

"See?" I said, not in a smug or spiteful way, just a way that I hoped would end the conversation for good. Instead it sparked a full on war. She turned her face to Shane, mouth open in pure shock, eyes full of a sad rage.

"Why can't you just side with me for this once? Thanks Shane, thanks a lot!" she cried, getting to her feet and storming back towards the camp. Shane just rolled his eyes and in turn his entire head backwards in pure exasperation and leapt to his feet to follow her. I turned to see who was left and it was only Carol and I still sat by the creek. I gave her an awkward smile and she returned it happily. I just dipped another plate in the creek and swirled it round, pulling it back to the surface and set it down next to the others. I looked at the huge pile that was still next to me and then the small pile that Lori had left, threw my head back and followed it with my body so that I was lying down, facing the clear blue sky that had the odd speckling of wispy clouds running over it.

"I don't think he's trying to kill you." Carol said softly. I turned my head on the dirt to face her.

"Really?" I asked her, relieved that someone else believed me. She nodded at me and I spoke again, this time exceptionally softly, my voice had a slight tinge of pain.

"He's not some insane killer." I told her, confiding in her my true feelings. "It's unfair that Lori's saying that." I finished with, a sigh punctuating my final word.

"I know." She told me. "He was kind to Sophia..." her voice wavered. "Killers aren't kind." I looked at the poor woman. She was clearly still grief-stricken, and I don't really think anybody had paid much attention to her. I think she was just one of those people that everybody took for granted and they forgot she had feelings...we forgot she had feelings. Myself included. I instantly felt a surge of guilt as I realised that she'd lost her baby girl and nobody had spoken to her about anything since except about when they were going to wash up or clean some clothes, in fact she probably just had to listen to Lori ramble on about Shane and all of her problems. I reached my hand out towards Carol, who now had tears in her eyes, and she clasped my hand, her turn to be grateful now. She sniffed and wiped her eyes with her other hand.

"What was Sophie like?" I asked her, face full of concern and she just smiled at me.

"Sophia." She corrected me, still smiling. Her eyes glazed over and she withdrew her hand, returning to washing a blanket that was in front of her, still not focusing her eyes on anything.

"She was quiet...you know, shy. Kids sometimes are shy. She was really creative...if you gave her a shoebox she'd turn it into...I don't know, anything." She smiled wistfully.

"She was a good girl." She finished, tears dried up as she remembered the child that was ripped away from her. She folded the blanket she was washing and stood up.

"I'm gonna go and uh...put this back..." she told me, throwing me a smile and turning back towards the camp. I watched her walk away and my mind couldn't stop thinking about the little girl that I'd never properly met. I knew that Carl and she were good friends, both being children of the apocalypse and all, and when she'd turned he became lonelier than anybody else I'd ever known, so he latched onto me. I can't say I minded...it was nice having someone that was just permanently cheerful. He seemed to be anyway. I went back to lying down next to the water, washing duties completely forgotten, and I shuffled round so that my face was just above the dirty water's edge. I peered through the layer of gunk that was resting on the surface and saw what was underneath. A group of little fish, darting along through the rocks one by one, all swimming in perfect sync...what would it be like? To be totally oblivious to the catastrophe that had befallen man? I pondered this and other deep things for a few minutes until I was disturbed by Glenn, who observed me nervously from about 3 metres away, in case I did something...odd.

"What are you doing?" he asked me, a slightly accusative tinge in his voice. I didn't stop staring at the pool of water.

"Just chillin'." I told him. "One of those rare occasions, y'know." I explained. I was right. It wasn't very often that anybody could just sit and not be bothered by some dramatic event.

"Oh, I see." He replied awkwardly, not really knowing what to say to that. I still hadn't bothered looking at him.

"What's going on Glenn? Why are you so weird around me?" I asked him in a soft, sleepy voice. The talk with Carol and the calming nature of the pond had totally sanded down my rough edges for a little while, and I wasn't really feeling vivacious.

"Nothing, I'm not weird around you." He gabbled quickly. I rocked my head side to side slowly.

"Yeah you are. No offence, but it's really confusing..."I trailed off, waiting for an explanation.

"No, nothing, what?"he spluttered. I stopped rocking my head and cast a lazy eye over him briefly.

"Yeah, it is pretty obvious that something weird's going on." I told him and still he stood there awkwardly avoiding my gaze. His eyes darted around a few times before looking at me sadly.

"Maggie doesn't like it when I talk to the other girls in the camp. It makes her feel edgy." He told me, looking around automatically as if just by saying her name he'd summon her.

"She's not Beetlejuice. You can say her name without her appearing." He relaxed a little.

"I know, it's stupid...anyway, I came out here because Carol said you were here." I looked at him distractedly again, not really knowing what to make of that.

"I just came to tell you that he's awake now." He finally got the words out. I looked at him and frowned, the warmth from the sun and the magic of the pool now muddling my brain and making me lazy and lethargic.

"Who's awake?" I asked, puzzled, furrowing my eyebrows and screwing my brain for any sensible trains of thought. Glenn frowned at me as if I were crazy.

"...uh, Daryl's awake?" he said, almost asking me. I swivelled my head quickly, a sudden surge of blood rushing to my tired head.

"Oh!" I exclaimed "Him! Sorry Glenn thanks." I said, dismissing him with gratitude. He looked pleased he didn't have to talk to me anymore, so he turned quickly and walked off. I spotted a beady eyed Maggie standing in the distance, glaring at me intently. I crossed my eyes at her and grimaced, sticking my tongue out, trying to ridicule her...yeah I really didn't like Maggie. I leapt to my feet once I'd got my head on straight, stuck my hands in my pockets and started making my way back towards the camp, shadow dizzily trying to catch up with me.

I got to the tent and opened the zipper, peeling back the door and stepping in. Beth was still in a bad way from the attack, (the bullet was from a much more powerful gun) so she had to stay in the RV, whereas Daryl was left in our tent with a few more bandages and plasters. I looked over at him; he had his eyes closed and he was holding his head with both hands.

"Not gonna lie, you look like shit." I told him, sitting down on the nylon carpet that was the bottom of the tent. He laughed through his nose at that, mouth stretching into a small smile and replied.

"Feel like shit." He informed me. It was my turn to laugh at him.

"Yeah, bullets aren't the best things to have lodged inside you. You should try to catch less of them with your kidney... you may find it easier to survive that way." I cooed at him, mocking him slightly. His hands still rested on his head but he pulled a comical face, making a very caricatured sad face.

"Shut up. Could say the same to you." He told me. I nodded in agreement.

"Yeah you probably could. Andrea come and see you yet?" I inquired, hoping that she had so that she could apologise to him for burying a bullet in his side.

"No...guessin' she shot me then?" he asked. I felt a slight sinking feeling in my stomach.

"Yeah...yeah she did. You're alive though. That's always a good start." I said cheerfully. He removed his hands from his face to reveal slightly sunken, bloodshot eyes. He looked a total state.

"Okay I take back what I said." I told him kindly. He just looked at me, slightly confused and dazed.

"You don't look like shit." I said, and was met by a raised eyebrow from him. I continued.

"You look like total shit." I finished. He laughed at that and then came back with some colourful names for me, making me prefer 'gunshot' immensely.

"You ain't winnin' no beauty pageants either..."he grumbled. I laughed properly at last, mind at ease that he wasn't going to die.

"Dale reckons you were pretty worried I was gonna die." He stated. I was shocked by this sudden statement, wiping the smile right off my face. I shrugged, but told him the truth. Even completely out of it I bet he could tell if I was lying...I'm a shit liar.

"Yeah, pretty worried." I confessed. "You fell down and just stopped moving, it was actually quite scary." I told him. He just stared up at the tent, probably not used to people telling him they were worried about him.

"Why d'you care so much anyway?" I'd sort of anticipated him saying this, but I hadn't really prepared an answer. He looked back down at me, waiting for my response. I levelled with him.

"You're my friend, I'm not particularly fond of my friends dying."I told him finally. He just continued to stare at me, obviously slightly taken aback that I'd referred to him as my friend. He sniffed before speaking.

"Ok." He said before turning back to face the tent roof. I stood up and continued my sentence.

"You know...unless I stab them first..." I joked, but he turned his head quickly to look at me and saw me laughing silently at him. He scowled.

"Y'ain't funny..."he mumbled, throwing a spare pillow at me. I ducked and let it hit the side of the tent, and as soon as the pillow had made a delicate thud onto the floor where my bed was, the tent unzipped again and Andrea walked in. She glanced at me and then looked at Daryl.

"Oh, I can see this isn't a great time, I'll come back..." she began, but he interrupted. I sat down heavily on my bed and didn't say anything. She looked at me one more time.

"Can't we talk in private?" she asked him cattily, just wanting me out of the way so that she could tell him some convoluted story of what happened. He looked at me then back to her.

"Why, can't you say whatever it is in front of her?" he asked her, raising an eyebrow. She widened her eyes and began shaking her head exuberantly.

"No, no, of course I can...I just wanted to say I'm sorry for you know...shooting you and everything. It was an accident." She told him, clearly she'd felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest as she smiled after apologising. He played with a spare bandage and looked at her.

"That so..." he said, as if accusing her of shooting him deliberately. I was laughing inside, but I didn't want to openly laugh in her face and start an argument with her in here. He glanced quickly at me, the look in his eyes told me that he was messing with her and wanted a little bit of payback. I bit the inside of my cheek and looked down, desperately containing my laughter.

"I'd never shoot you on purpose, I wouldn't shoot anyone on purpose! Well, most people anyway..."she said, glancing at me, eyes lingering over my smile suppressing face and I couldn't help but let out a little laugh.

"Ohh, Andrea." I cooed at her "You wouldn't shoot me, would you?" eyes widening in mock sadness. She smiled sarcastically at me and then spoke softly.

"Well, not deliberately, but you never know, shit happens..."she trailed off, throwing Daryl one last apologetic smile and flouncing off. I burst out laughing, something she probably heard. My uncontrollable laughter was probably attracting a reasonable amount of attention, but nobody came in. Daryl was laughing too; it was probably detracting some of the pain from his side.

"You're an ass." He told me through laughs, which made me laugh even harder as I replied.

"I know...I fucking know..." I forced out, barely capable of breathing through my laughter. Oh my god, it felt good to laugh freely.


	23. Showing some compassion

Weeks later and Daryl had pretty much entirely covered, now sporting a scar extremely similar to mine. I often joked to him that we were twins and he smiled slightly whenever I said it, not saying anything. He'd spent no time resting, going out hunting the day after he'd woken up, despite many protests. About a week later a similar situation arose in which I tried (and failed) once again to convince him to stay in the camp.

"I think you should probably rest for a while longer, I mean, you were shot." I advised him. He merely glanced at me as he picked up his crossbow and the sparkling red knife that we now shared, since he hadn't found one of his own that he liked and I'd stopped needing them. I stopped hunting for a while and started helping with the smaller, day to day tasks at the camp like helping dale with the RV, or washing filthy plastic with Lori and Carol. I still liked to sit and keep watch, borrowing various weapons that I could use instead of my own, noisy gun that everybody told me would attract walkers. In a twisted way I was rather upset I didn't have more occasions to use my clean, sexy gun. It's a weird way of describing a weapon, but it was at least 100 times better than the black chunks of metal that the others carried and I was sort of proud of it.

I wiped the gun from my thoughts as Daryl went to leave the tent with his crossbow slung over one shoulder, resting slightly on the wound. I cringed at the thought of it.

"If you're gonna go out, at least try not to use the fucking entry wound as a crossbow-holster." I snapped at him, eyes fixed on the raised bump under his shirt where Herschel had taped a cotton patch to prevent the bleeding and keep it clean. Daryl just looked down at it in disdain and sniffed before continuing out of the tent. I sighed and threw down the book I'd been reading. T-Dog found some dog-eared books on a supply run and he'd distributed them randomly out amongst the survivors at camp, much to the delight of everybody. I wasn't even sure what it was I was reading, some shitty self help book about finding your inner child...I didn't fully understand it but it was something to take my mind off the hoards of flesh eating corpses that breathed down our necks every day.

I threw the book down and heavily got up from my mess of blankets that used to be a bed before ripping the door of the tent open and stepping into the bright light of the morning sun. Everybody was just milling around, a tense feeling drifted through the camp and settled on the shoulders of everybody who felt it. I sidled up to a concerned looking Lori who was trying to calm down an extremely upset Carl.

"-We'll find whatever it is, and everything will be fine." She was soothingly telling him. I frowned and she looked at me.

"What's going on?" I asked her as I darted my eyes back and forth between Lori and Carl. She sighed and spoke again.

"Carl was playing in the woods yesterday and heard a crying noise...he's been talking about it all night and it's really upsetting him so a couple of guys have volunteered to go and help find out what it is." She informed me, eyes glancing over to where Daryl and Rick were getting ready to go into the woods. Carl looked up at me, worry still filled his exhausted eyes.

"Are you going with them?" he inquired, leaning against his mother and rubbing one of his eyes. I raised my eyebrows and looked over towards them. A pang of guilt surged through me as part of me knew that Daryl would have gone with me if it had been me saying I wanted to go and investigate a mysterious noise...days after being shot. I let out a final sigh and nodded at him.

"I think I am, yeah." I nodded. He smiled up at me and hugged me one last time before I reached back into the tent and slipped the spare, black hunting knife I was still using into my waistband. I took a deep breath and exhaled, puffing my cheeks out before darting back outside to join the others. I walked over towards them while they were both deep in conversation with each other, until they noticed me walking towards them and turned their gaze to me. I felt awkward walking towards them with them both staring at me, so I pretended to see something interesting on the RV that was parked behind them until I finally reached where they were stood and grinned at Rick.

"Your kid's pretty adamant that I go too." I quickly lied, not wanting to be turned away because of my track record for going out. Recently it hadn't been great what with the fainting in the walmart and being surrounded by a hungry mass of the undead, but I was trying to start again with a blank slate. Rick just continued to look at me and nodded.

"Got any weapons?" he inquired. I thought it was a bit of a dumb question; nobody would willingly wander into the forest unarmed. I lifted my shirt a little way so he would see the huge blade tucked into my black, tattered, denim cut-offs and he just looked bemused. He shook the expression from his face and grinned at Daryl, who was just staring at me like I was crazy.

"Don't really get why you're coming." He stated. I raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Says the walking dead." I retorted, pointing towards the spot on his side where Andrea had recently buried a bullet in him. He shook his head at me and grinned as he viciously loaded an arrow into the huge contraption that he always carried around so effortlessly.

"Andrea'd get lucky to kill y'first." He warned me, still grinning menacingly at me. After he'd been shot we'd shared some of the most vicious banter I'd ever experienced, frequently threatening to kill each other. I laughed quietly and Rick just nudged me with his elbow.

"Come on, we've gotta get moving." He informed us, and on that note we made our way towards the edge of the forest as the most unlikely group of friends ever.

We'd been walking through the part of the forest that Carl had said he'd heard the noise for about 2 hours, not really conversing but not really in silence either until we'd had our fill of hearing the leaves crunch underfoot and the trees ominously rustle above us. I turned to Rick once we'd panicked after hearing the millionth twig snap before speaking.

"This is hopeless Rick, we're not gonna find anything...we don't even know what we're looking for." I said faithlessly. He just threw me an exasperated look, mud clinging to his tired face as we carried on walking sluggishly through the undergrowth. We came to a slight clearing where the trees became substantially wider, several of the trunks were hollow as if someone had scooped out the middle and left the empty shell standing tall. We started to walk more slowly as there could have been a number of things hiding in the trunks and we really didn't want to risk attracting too much attention to ourselves in case there were. Daryl suddenly stopped and held one of his hands up, signalling for us to do the same. My heart nearly stopped as I stood frozen in fear of a repeat of what had happened the week before. He faced us silently and pressed a finger to his lips, commanding our silence. They were both stood exactly as I was; frozen to the spot, waiting for a noise to come from somewhere around us.

Surely enough, a small, high pitched sniffling noise came from one of the tree trunks about 6 metres ahead of us. I tentatively pulled my knife out of my waistband and held it poised, in line with my face in case of an attack from the source of the sniffling noise. Rick had his gun out, pointed at the ground and Daryl was holding his crossbow to his face, and as soon as he was satisfied we were all suitably prepared, he pointed to the tree we were all staring at and signalled for us to move round and surround it.

As we all crept forwards, hearts leaping into our throats, I wondered what the fuck could make such a strange noise at such an awful time. We were all in line with the tree, and Rick held one hand up and counted down with his fingers. As soon as his fingers formed a fist, we leapt round to the front of the tree, where the hollow trunk opened to reveal what was sat inside waiting for us.

A short, high pitched squeal as we all drew our weapons up and pointed them at it as it covered its tiny face with both of its hands. A small girl, no older than 4 or 5 took refuge in the hollow tree, sobbing quietly now, covering both of her hands with her face. I dropped the knife back down to my side as Rick put his gun back in its holster, but Daryl kept his crossbow firmly aimed at the girl's terrified and muddy, tear streaked face. I looked at him, face full of distraught.

"Daryl for fuck sake, put it down, she's a child!" I begged him. He didn't look so convinced but lowered it anyway. The girl looked up at me through her big, shining eyes, as tears that reflected the lights powerful glow rolled down her cheeks that were still podgy with the fat of youth. She spoke timidly, voice wavering as she addressed me.

"Are you going to take me back home now?" she asked me totally innocently. Her voice cracked something inside of me that had long since hardened, hardened by months of being on the run and a new lifestyle of 'kill or be killed'. The innocence of this small child that was being ripped away from her rang loudly in my head as I realised this was just one case of millions, millions who wouldn't be as lucky as her to be found and who would certainly be ripped to pieces by vile creatures who only belonged under the bed in the imaginations of the children they massacred. My voice came out as a broken whisper as I bent down to be eye level with her.

"No, I'm sorry but we're not here to take you home." I looked round at Daryl and Rick, as my eyes became blurry with the tears that belonged to the thousands of harmless children whose lives were viciously torn away from them. They clearly realised the anguish that I was feeling...and it seemed that they felt it too. They both looked at the little girl we found alone in the woods and they were visibly shaken by it. I turned back round to look at her, oblivious to the fact that she was one of the lucky ones as I wiped the water that had built up in my eyes.

"So...I think you should tell us exactly what happened." I told her as kindly as I could, already knowing the horror story she was about to tell us. I suppose I was clinging to some hope that she'd tell me her family were okay...but deep down I knew better than that. She looked down at her small, starfish hands and twiddled them around each other, doing her best to scrape the mud off her fingertips.

"Some men came into the house." She began, her fragile, high pitched voice told me as it trembled.

"They came into the house and when mommy screamed at them they bit her, so I ran away." She informed me, clearly unaware of the fate that had befallen her mother. I nodded and smiled reassuringly at the little girl, who didn't return it.

"Was it just you and your mommy in the house then?" I questioned her. She nodded at me, her long, brown, frizzy hair bobbing around in the breeze.

"Daddy left one day and he was looking for something for mommy, but he didn't come back ever." She told me, hazel eyes welling up with tears. She began crying uncontrollably.

"I want my mommy!" she sobbed at me, entire body shaking the pile of leaves she was sat on. I reached my arm into the tree trunk and scooped her out before she threw herself at me and buried her face in my collar, tears being soaked up by my t-shirt. I sat on the floor of the forest for a few minutes in total silence other than the occasional inconsiderate chirping or a nearby bird and the snuffling noises of the small child attached to me. Finally, Daryl broke the silence.

"What do we do with her?" he asked quietly. I stared at him, aghast that there was any question about it.

"We're bring her back with us of course, what else could we do?" I growled at him. He looked at me with the look he reserved for me that said 'are you retarded?'.

"We don't know her, she could be a trap!" he exclaimed. Rick stood in silence just letting us battle it out between us, until he finally spoke up.

"Daryl's right, it's a dangerous risk bringing her back to camp." He said softly to me. I glared at him.

"A risk?! She's 4!" I hissed. She tapped me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear. I turned back to Rick.

"She's 5!" I corrected myself, giving her a brief smile. She took to resting her head on my shoulder while I argued with the two men that stood between her survival and her certain death.

"I sort of expected this from Daryl, but Rick?! What if it were Carl wandering around in the woods, nobody to protect him, walkers hunting his every fucking movement?! You wouldn't be so quick to cast him aside would you!?" I snarled at him, making sure my argument was obvious, tightening my grip on the small girl that was lolling against me thumb in her mouth as a comforter. The debate was cut short however, by a squeal of excitement from the little girl.

"MOMMY!" she shrieked happily, running towards a tall stumbling brunette in the distance.

It happened again; the world slowed down and for whatever reason, we all leapt into action. I darted forward, catching up with her and quickly slid my arm across her chest and under her arms, lifting her hastily off the ground. She screamed in defiance and outrage but I ignored her and clamped both my hands around her head, covering her eyes so she couldn't see what was about to happen.

I looked on at the scene unfold, face and emotions once again hardened against the reality of the world now. I watched as Daryl walked swiftly over to the walker and plunged the shining blade right down through its still-decomposing skull right up to the hilt, and then ripped it out, the woman's skull spouting black liquid up about a foot into the air. I held the crying little girl's head even tighter, my face now a muddy grimace. I gazed at the crumpled body that now lay at Daryl's feet, my eyes beginning to well up again at the realisation at what had just transpired; we'd just killed the little girl's mother within earshot of her.

No. We hadn't.

Something else had killed her long before we got there, what we did was disposed of the festering creature that waited inside her, playing her like a sick marionette, masquerading on earth as her mother. The little girl had to begin her short life again, starting from that point.

"For fuck sake get rid of it." I told Daryl in a defeated voice. He looked at the little girl and then guiltily back up at me before nodding. Rick walked forward to help Daryl lift the dead weight of the mother, and together they moved about 3 metres and rolled her down a bank and into a stream- not miles away from the girl, but far enough for her not to have to see. I finally uncovered her eyes and she began looking around for the woman that was no longer there.

"Where did my mommy go?" she wailed at me, trying to wander around in search of her mother, her torn purple leggings trying to keep up with the amount of movement they were expected to do. She began to wander towards the bank where the walker was laying face down in the water, so Daryl snatched her up and carried her back over to me before dumping her down before me. I knelt down one more time and had a firm grip on her wrists so she wouldn't wander off again.

"What's your name?" I asked her as kindly as I could, still in shock from the scene that I'd just witnessed. She looked back at me, confused tears pouring down her cheeks again, following the clear tracks of skin that had been created by countless nights crying alone in the tree.

"Millie." She sniffled, wiping her running noise on her long, blue sleeve. The unattractive snorting noise that she made while doing this clearly wasn't to Daryl's liking, as he grimaced and turned away from her.

I imagine he wasn't used to kids.

Rick stepped forward and knelt down on one knee next to her. The awful images I put in his head about Carl must have stuck, because what he said next filled me with incomprehensible joy.

"Listen Millie, we're gonna bring you back to our little camp because...well we don't think your mommy's coming to find you." He finished compassionately. She carried on crying but not heavily, now she'd run out of little squeaks and noises so silent tears poured down her tiny face. She simply looked at Rick and nodded timidly, before walking forward and clasping hold of him in another big hug. He was taken aback but he didn't push her away as he attempted to understand her distress.

After a few minutes of her crying quietly into his shoulder, he went to stand up.

"Okay, I think we've found what we were looking for...we should head back." Rick told us. Daryl and I both just nodded in agreement, not certain what to make of the events of the day. I turned to Millie.

"Hey Millie, do you wanna piggyback to the camp?" I asked her with a hint of enthusiasm. She threw me a watery smile and nodded energetically, before I bent down and allowed her to clamber onto my back. She wrapped her short arms around my neck and clung onto me as if I were about to drop her in the woods again and never see her again. Rick began walking ahead of us, Daryl and I walking a few metres behind with Millie, absorbing the details of the discovery in total silence.


	24. Putting right the wrongs

Just before we'd arrived back at camp it had started to rain. Not a heavy downpour, but an annoying mist of water that moved through the camp and left a thin sheet of moisture on everything and everyone. The people that were in our makeshift home milled around aimlessly, only really venturing outside when it was absolutely necessary, smiles washed away by the cool autumn rain.

We trudged wearily back to the awaiting survivors who were curiously leaning out of the tents to see what we'd found. Rick walked ahead and as he arrived just outside his tent, Lori jumped out and threw herself around him. Slowly, Dale, T-Dog, Carl and the rest of the survivors joined us in the communal area, but I was so worn out from carrying Millie that their faces became a blue and I totally disregarded everything. I knelt down so she could slide off my back and hide behind my legs, wary of all the new faces around her. I put my hand on her head in a sort of comforting way and allowed her to cower behind me for a little while as she was rapidly becoming the centre point of everyone's attention. Rick was the first to break the tense silence that our arrival had created.

"We found it...the noise." He informed them, his gaze turning to Millie, who was now peeping out from behind me just enough to see what was happening. I nudged her forward a little but she stood firmly behind me, still nervous of the people around her.

"Found her cryin' in a tree, reckon she was hours away from becomin' walker bait." Daryl told everyone, leaving Rick and I to remember how we'd almost been too late to stop her from running into the arms of her dead mother. I shivered at the memory of it. Dale stepped forward.

"What's gonna happen to her? Who's gonna look after her?" he inquired. We all looked at one another, not wanting to volunteer ourselves for fear of having to be responsible for someone else.

"I'll look after her, it'll be okay." Lori piped up. Rick didn't look 100% convinced, so I attempted to alleviate Rick's situation.

"No Lori, you've got Carl...it'll be easier for someone else to take her so she can have their full attention." I told her firmly. Rick didn't nod at me or anything, but the look in his eyes told me that he was massively grateful for not donating him another child. Lori bristled with indignation.

"Thanks for the support Harper, I'm sure I could take care of more than one kid at a time." She pouted. She glanced at the small girl cowering behind me and spoke again, any trace of motherly tones completely removed by her irritation at me for standing in her way.

"What makes you think you've got the right to decide who gets her?" She sniped, scanning me up and down. I stared at her incredulously.

"Who gets her?" I echoed, hoping I hadn't heard her right. "She's a child, not a toy, Lori!" I shouted. Millie tugged at my t-shirt, hoping to attract my attention. I turned my head and looked down at her. She waved at me with her hand, signalling for me to bend down so she could whisper to me, her small voice tickling my ear as she cupped her hands around her mouth, as if shielding her words from Lori. I stood up again and stared directly at Lori.

"She's not going with you Lori, that's final. And that wasn't my decision." I told her firmly, looking down at Millie before throwing her a reaffirming smile. She returned it before fixing her gaze on Lori. I saw the fear in her eyes at the thought of going with the scary, tall woman and I quickly looked around the camp until I found a sufficient and obvious, yet overlooked answer.

"What about Carol?" I said quietly, looking right at her. She'd been biting her fingertips nervously until I spoke up and she lowered them slowly, pointing towards her chest.

"Me?" she asked, surprised. I nodded at her.

"It makes sense...doesn't it?" I confirmed, while posing the question to the entire camp, daring someone to disagree with me. Nobody stepped forward and argued, so I pushed Millie forward a little bit towards the smiling Carol. She didn't hesitate like she did with Lori, so I walked her over towards Carol as the group disbanded and went their separate ways. Carol smiled widely at Millie as we got over to her and she extended her arm out towards her before pulling her closer to her and resting her hand on her shoulder...exactly as I'd seen her do with Sophia a couple of times.

"Are you sure you want me to look after her?" she asked me as if she wanted me to rethink what I'd said in front of everyone. I just looked at her and smiled reassuringly.

"You're not getting out of it that easily, yes, you take her. She needs someone to look after her...properly." I finished, nodding towards Lori who was still sulking in the corner. Carol just smiled and nodded before walking away, holding her hand out for Millie to run along and hold. I know now just as I knew then that I'd done the right thing; Carol still had a lot of mothering left in her from the gaping hole that Sophia left inside her. I watched as they both wandered off happily towards the RV and Dale sidled up to me, staring after the little girl who was hopping nervously into her new life with the middle aged woman who walked back into an old one.

"So you just found her in the woods huh?" he asked me. I looked at him and shrugged.

"I know what you're thinking, and I don't care. I think it was the right thing." I told him, standing my ground. He looked at me bemusedly.

"No! I agree with you, I'm sure if it'd been left to the others, well...something else would have happened." He finally got the words out, both of us knowing fully what he was going to say, neither of us wanting to give it too much thought. I sniffed and turned back towards the RV.

"There's no way I would have caved. She was always gonna come back with us, regardless of what Daryl and Rick had to say." I told him firmly. "She's only 5, there's no way she could have made it." I informed him sadly. He glanced at the rusting RV and then back to me.

"So what happened?" he asked curiously. I thought about it for a second before answering.

"She was hidden in a hollowed out tree...I don't know how long for. A while, couple of days at least. Her home was overrun and she managed to escape...we had to kill her mom. We couldn't help her." I confessed quietly, as if she could hear me. I still felt a bit guilty about what we did to the walker in the woods, but I knew I had to get over that because it was exactly that; a walker. I couldn't feel guilty over every walker we killed, even if it was someone's mom. Someone's probably killed my mom by now...even if that's not a thought I want to hold onto. I just looked at Dale again, this time slightly guiltily.

"It wasn't me anyway, Daryl did it." I told him, even though I knew he wouldn't be judging us on that. He looked at the RV without blinking.

"Did she see it?" he asked quietly. There was a brief silence before I replied.

"Yeah. She saw her. She didn't see what we did to her though...that wouldn't have been right." I finally said, looking down at the floor. I didn't know how much longer I could carry on talking about it for, so I moved onto another topic.

"Why was Lori so desperate to take her?" I inquired, cocking my head to the right. Dale smiled slightly at that and shook his head.

"No idea, she's probably got her reasons though. I wouldn't worry about it too much, it's not like she's gonna kidnap her or anything." He joked. I lightened up a little at this and decided not to really worry about it, Millie was okay now. Glenn appeared from behind one of the tents looking a little concerned, and he called Dale over. Dale walked away and I was left staring alone at the dilapidated motor home, contemplating everything that had happened with my arms crossed firmly across my front.

"Sure you did the right thing today?" I heard the rough southern accent from behind me. I turned the upper half of my body to face the source of the voice. Daryl was standing behind me, also gazing warily at the RV. I felt a little indignant.

"What, you mean not leaving her to die out in the forest? Yeah. I think I did the right thing." I almost snapped. He snorted at that but then there was silence as he wiped the smile slowly from his face before speaking.

"Wanted to apologise for that." He said quietly. I glared at him; secretly enjoying the fact that he knew he was wrong.

"You wanted to apologise for what?" I said, smiling wickedly. He started smiling as well but it was more pained.

"Would y'quit bein' a bitch for a few seconds and just say 'That's okay Daryl, I accept your apology' for once?" he whined, putting on a falsetto voice when he was mimicking me. I grimaced at him.

"We both know I don't sound like that, but yes, it's okay. Well it's not okay you wanted to leave her in the woods to die...but we're cool." I told him, falsely sweet smile plastered across my face. He punched me lightly on the shoulder and stalked off. I laughed at him for being grumpy and followed him.

"You know what we call people like you in Virginia?" I asked him, still giggling to myself. He turned his head sideways to see me and carried on walking.

"No." He called back. "What d'you call people like me in Virginia?" he asked me, slightly curiously.

"Grumpasaurus Rexes." I told him, barely able to contain my laughter now, much to his disdain. He reached the tent door and before he stepped inside he threw me a dark look. I giggled and followed him inside.

"Oh come on. You need to let your inner child come out to play sometime." I teased him. He looked at me like I'd grown a second head.

"You been readin' too much of that shit that T-Dog brought back." He told me, flopping onto his rapidly deflating bed. I shrugged at him.

"You're probably right. At least I can read." I joked. I didn't think he'd take offence to that...and I was right.

"Just cause I'm from the south ain't it?" he said, grinning childishly at me. I pretended to think hard about it for a few seconds before replying to him.

"Yep." I concluded. We both started laughing and I threw myself at my bed. When the laughter died down I opened my mouth and closed it again, not sure of what to say. I eventually thought of something that had been bugging me for a little while.

"When's the next supply run? Only I need time to recover from the emotion damage caused by today." I yawned, rubbing my eyes. He laughed at me.

"Woman I've been shot! Emotionally damaging my ass." He whined. I let out a small laugh.

"Yeah alright, I'll give you that one. Seriously, I need a new knife or something." I told him. Since I'd passed out at the store Daryl had been using my red bowie knife, and although I didn't mind him using it, it meant I needed to find a replacement.

"What's wrong with the red one?" he inquired. I just stared at him and let out a small sarcastic laugh.

"You mean other than the fact that you're using it? Absolutely nothing." He looked down sheepishly before trying to think of a solution.

"Hear Rick's plannin' on goin' into the town tomorrow. Maybe he'll let us go along." He thought out loud. I sat up and frowned at his statement.

"Us?" I repeated. "So you're coming as well?" I asked him hopefully. To be honest I just wanted to keep an eye on him- he'd probably end up killing himself accidentally if nobody watched out for him. It was his turn to sit up now. He bolted upright and stared at me.

"What, y'think I'm gonna let you go and get yourself killed?" he asked casually. I smiled at him and nodded. I realised at that moment that this is what the camp and the survival was all about- looking out for each other. I never really thought there was anyone at the camp that hated each other-I knew lots of people didn't like each other a whole lot, but overall we got along really well and we had each other's best interests at heart. With that thought, I stood rapidly up and walked over towards the door of the tent.

"Where you goin' gunshot?" Daryl called after me. I didn't turn round to look at him; I just peered curiously out of the tent to see who was still milling around. Nobody. The camp was dead.

"Gonna go and check on Millie...wanna come with?" I asked, knowing that it was a pointless enquiry. Something told me kids weren't really Daryl's thing, but he looked up at me for a few seconds as he pondered his response. He flipped the red knife that had previously been resting on his bedside pile back and forth in his hands and then nodded.

"Sure." He agreed. I was astonished and thought that it might be the pain from his side that made his brain go all loopy.

"But Daryl...she's 5...you won't be allowed to swear in front of her." I quickly threw out there, making sure he knew that before he went over there. He raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth in mock surprise.

"You were runnin' your mouth off around her when we were in the forest." He pointed out. He was right; I'd used some pretty colourful phrases in front of her.

"Yeah, that was outside, we were exposed and in danger. Now we're in the camp, rules are different." I quickly improvised. He knew I was bullshitting, so he laughed and flopped back onto the bed.

"Whatever, go without me. I'll talk to her later." He dismissed me by closing his eyes and apparently going to sleep.

"Can't fool me that easily...nobody falls asleep that quickly." I smiled at him knowingly. He maintained his sleeping pose but lifted his right hand with raised middle finger. I laughed loudly and walked out of the tent towards the rusting RV to check in on the scared (but coping) little girl whose life I'd managed to save.


	25. Extending some boundaries

Millie had the best night's sleep she'd had in weeks the night she arrived in camp, as she burst out of the RV the next morning jumping and skipping with the hugest smile on her face. It must have been a massive relief to not wake up in some rotting tree, one that I don't thank god frequently enough for.

After everybody had sleepily surfaced from their shabby tents, wearily rubbing their eyes they settled down for breakfast around the fire pit where every meal was served. The two kids in the camp, Carl and Millie, were both lolling against their respective parents and slowly munching their cornflakes with tired jaws. I waited for someone to say something about the supply run as I really didn't want to seem overly eager. Rick withdrew his arm from around Lori and leant forward so that he was on his knees, facing the rest of the group.

"Right, anybody that wants to come with us into town today is more than welcome, it's not a supply run as such, it's just...whatever you want from town, come and get it." He finished and my ears perked up. Maybe my ban on supply runs had finally been lifted; maybe I was just getting my hopes up a little too high.

"Come and see me after breakfast and we'll see what we can do." He told the group, who weren't overtly interested in what he had to say, but nodded with respectful disinterest. I glanced at Daryl and tried to contain a smile; he knew how much I wanted to go into the town with them, but I'm not sure how much he trusted me with well...not dying. Everybody else in the camp took their time with breakfast, but something in my head was niggling at the back, telling me if I wolfed my food down as quickly as humanely possible without choking then I'd be allowed to go with them.

The time came for everybody to return to their daily business and it hit me that I didn't even know what most people did during the day. The glorified dishwashers carried on being the glorified dishwashers and Daryl went out to carelessly murder woodland creatures and occasionally I went with him. Rick leaned over the hood of the SUV and observed a map of the town. He seemed to permanently have a map at the end of his nose and Shane was hanging off his arm. By the look on Rick's face, Shane was chewing his ear off about something or other, so as a favour to my friend I walked over and hopped up on the hood between them.

"I wanna come." I told Rick, looking him straight in the eye. He squinted and smiled slightly.

"You sure that's a great idea? I mean, last time didn't exactly go according to plan..." he trailed off. I held up my hand to silence him.

"Yes, I fainted, yes, I was quite sick for some time afterwards. It was a onetime thing. A lot's happened since then and I'm sure I can take it. Give me one more chance, I promise I'll come back in one piece this time." I pleaded, hoping that some of it would get through to him. Thankfully it did and he signalled for me to get off the hood. Shane watched me as I walked over to the back of the SUV. I slipped my fingers round the warm metal of the door handle and tugged but to my complete surprise it was locked.

"It's locked." I told them. Rick walked round to me, his head following the SUV as he did so.

"Yeah I know, it's out of gas. We're gonna take the pickup." He informed me. I threw him a quizzical look. About two months I'd been staying at the camp, and I'd literally never paid the pale blue, rattling pickup truck any attention whatsoever. It was parked next to the SUV and for some reason it had just camouflaged into the background to me, as I hadn't noticed it. I walked around it and looked warily at it and back at Rick, raising an eyebrow.

"You sure it still works? Looks like it could do with some work." I asked, banging the side of the back end with the handle of my gun and created an echoing noise that rumbled throughout the dingy pickup. Daryl suddenly appeared from behind me and put his hand over my wrist, stopping me from causing any further noise or damage to the truck.

"Cut that out, y'ain't goin' to town in that anyway." He told me. I frowned at him before he could explain.

"Shane an' Rick are goin' in that. We're gonna go on that." He nodded to a spot about 6 metres away and my stomach did a little back flip. How had I managed to ignore all of these different vehicles?! Sat in a patch of stereotypical sunlight sat a large, black motorbike. Its silver handles and metalwork glittered in the sun, the sleek black paint was shining and I found myself absolutely spellbound by its temporary inanimate beauty.

"Got a spare helmet?" I asked him innocently enough, looking up at him hopefully. He glanced at the bike and laughed.

"World's gone to shit an' you're worryin' about helmets?" he asked me incredulously. I shrugged, realising it had been a stupid question. I turned to look to Rick for some sort of signal, and he clapped his hands and rubbed them a couple of times.

"We good? Let's go!" he exclaimed, jumping in the driver's side of the dusty pickup truck, stained with various colours and mixtures...I didn't really want to know what they were, and I was too afraid to ask Daryl. I watched Shane step into the truck; his face sported the surliest look I've ever seen. He always looked like that around Rick, and they were supposed to be best friends...I can't imagine Daryl and I looked much different.

I watched as Rick and Shane shuffled lazily off in the pickup truck, a dusty trail rose up from the ground behind them, winding round trees and vehicles and settling back on whatever it could. Daryl started toward the motorbike and I nervously edged towards it as I really didn't want to risk scratching or denting it, as I quickly learnt that Daryl loved that bike more than he loved his stolen knife. I stared at it for a few seconds, registering the white "SS" that was embossed on the side of it. I widened my eyes at it and looked up at him as he heavily sat on the bike, reaching up for the obscenely high handlebars. He noticed me staring at him.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer." He quipped. I snapped out of it and pointed at the SS symbol.

"Didn't know you went in for all of that white supremacy shit." I said quietly, hoping he wouldn't react badly. He looked to where my finger was pointing and just grunted in response.

Bike was Merle's." He said quietly. Dale explained to me about Daryl's late older brother and he sounded like a total jackass, but I never said anything about him to Daryl. I imagine his dead brother was a bit of a touchy subject. I just looked up and locked eye contact with him for a few seconds.

"I know. Come on, they'll think we've been eaten by walkers." I stated, throwing one leg over the bike so that I was sat behind Daryl. I sat awkwardly with my hands holding the seat in front of me until he spoke up.

"Good luck stayin' on this thing like that." He said laughing slightly. I felt embarrassed but wrapped my arms quickly around his waist, trying my hardest to be wary of the bullet that had taken up permanent residence next to his kidney, terrified that I'd fall off and become something that looked a hell of a lot like mashed potato. He revved the motor and all of a sudden we were launched forward, speeding down the track with considerable speed, Daryl clearly not giving a shit about the amount of noise we were making. I had my gaze fixed solidly on the seat in between my legs, so when I glanced up and noticed the countryside ripping past us, spinning and turning into a blue and green mash of speeding colour I couldn't help but feel a little sick. I tried to stop myself from throwing up by resting my head on Daryl's back, forehead pressed against the angel wings on the worn out leather jacket, eyes squeezed tightly shut and praying hard for my stomach to stand up to the rest of the journey.

After 20 minutes or so of burying my face in Daryl's back from fear, I felt the dull roar of the bike grow quieter and slow down. I opened one eye and peeped out, only to find that we were cruising at walking pace through a small, abandoned town. I realised that it was the same town where I'd previously passed out and to confirm my suspicions we rolled past the Wal-Mart we'd visited. I looked at the grey steps that led towards the door that was still wide open and imagined three people bursting out, one dangling limply off the shoulders of the other two. I shoved the thought from my head and fixed my gaze on a plethora of other shops, until my eyes were drawn to the pale blue pickup sitting serenely in the distance, dust still dangling lazily around its wheels and windscreen. Daryl threw the motorcycle sharply round and did half a donut so that we were side on from the pickup. I'm still not entirely sure whether he did that deliberately or whether he didn't realise how sick I felt, but when he threw the bike round the contents of my stomach all lurched painfully to the side.

That was the final straw.

I clambered off the bike and staggered over to a nearby bin. All I'll say about it is breakfast was fairly pointless for me that day.

I shuffled sickly back to the bike where Daryl was now standing watching me, smirking as if he were proud of himself for what had just occurred.

"Usually happens the first time round." He told me, grin still plastered across his face. I looked darkly up at him, slightly pissed off.

"Couldn'tve said before I got on I suppose." I grumbled, putting one hand on the bike, trying to steady myself, as the town was slowly spinning now. He put a hand on my shoulder to steady me and moved me away from the bike.

"What are you doing?" I whined, feeling relatively delicate stuff, but infinitely better than I had done on the bike.

"Di'nt want you chuckin' your guts up on the bike." He told me. I glared at him once more, it became somewhat of a regular thing for us to glare at each other.

Appreciate the concern as ever Daryl." I snapped, shrugging his hand off and walking towards a small drug store. I pointed sluggishly at it, wobbling ever so slightly.

"There." I muttered. "Let's go there. We'll try and find Rick and Shane in a bit. He walked up behind me and returned the hand to my shoulder, as I was now swaying more violently than ever. I went to swat his hand away, still mad that he made me get my sicky hand of the bike, but my swat was a little overzealous and I toppled over and ended up lying on the dusty ground. He nudged me with his foot so I rolled over and grabbed it, in turn making him fall over. He yelped in surprise.

"The fuck?" he slurred. "You're an ass, hope you know that!" he grumbled. I laughed breathlessly and just stayed still.

"S'what you get for being mean. It's revenge." I told him, tired out from the sickness and talking at the same time, it was as if my stomach and head were both full of water, just sloshing round and causing problems. I felt Daryl get to his feet and I wanted to copy him but everything was still spinning so I just stayed on my back with my eyes shut for a few minutes, breathing laboriously until I felt a shadow fall across my face, and cold water suddenly poured over my face sobered me up.

"DARYL YOU-" I began but was cut off by the sound of Rick's voice.

"Do you cause this much trouble everywhere you go?" he asked from above me, and I instantly knew that the cooling shadow belonged to him. I knew he was joking, I could tell the way his voice came out from behind a smile. I grinned back at him.

"No. This guy just sucks at driving." I joked, pointing to Daryl. He was about to snarl something in response when Shane's voice rang out.

"This is great and everything but we've got stuff to find." He said with a raised voice, authority coated his every word. Rick extended his hand out and I grabbed it, allowing him to pull me up. I stood firmly on my feet at last, and took a look round. I pointed at the drug store and spoke.

"At least two of us should go in there." I stated, still pointing at the worn and beaten drug store. Rick and Shane looked at each other and Shane nodded at me.

"Me and Rick can go in there, we know what people need back at the camp. That's pretty much all we need, so you guys just take a look around and try not to get yourselves killed, I know that's a bit of a tall order." He quipped, flashing me a slight grin. I glanced at Daryl who watched Shane through squinted and dark eyes. I'll admit there was something I didn't trust about Shane, but at the time he hadn't given me a reason to dislike him so I withheld judgement. I just looked from him to Rick and nodded, then signalling for Daryl to come with me. We turned away from the two former officers and moved down the long, deserted street.

We'd been window shopping for about 10 minutes...a strange thing to do at the end of the world, but it gave us things to talk about which kept our spirits up. I was talking to him about something that had happened in Virginia when I was a kid and halfway through telling him he abruptly stopped walking. I immediately thought something was wrong and my hand flew to my gun. He waved it away, which assured me it wasn't anything serious.

"What's going on?" I asked him, slightly concerned but mostly my worry had melted away. He pointed to a blacked out window and door, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"What'd y'suppose that is?" he asked, squinting at the mysterious little shop. I peered at it for a long time, craning my aching neck to look at it from different angles.

"Dunno. Tattoo parlour?" I guessed, not really sure what it was but almost as curious as he was to find out. I can't imagine what business would have blacked out windows, so it was a puzzle that I really wanted to know the answer to. Apparently Daryl was a lot more intrigued than I initially thought, as he reached over to where I kept my gun, pulled it out of my waistband and shot a hole in the window, creating a spider web crack in the glass. I was stunned, but when he shot at it again I snapped out of my stupor and stared at the window as the glass fell, black shards ripping through the air like millions of jagged knives.

"Could've just asked. Would have been happy to shoot the window you know." I told him, slight stroppy tone to my voice. He smirked at me.

"More fun this way though." He told me, before stepping carelessly through the glass and into foreign territory, with me nervously following him into a room that was bathed in the unknown.


	26. Improving your outlook

The shop we stepped into was clocked in dust and shadow...and now glass. There were books lining the walls, leather bound scripts stacked high above the dark oak furniture that was still perfectly intact and untouched by the devastation that had erupted around the tiny shop. It was like a bubble of peace had enclosed the shop in perfect serenity for the last year or so and Daryl had singlehandedly shattered that dusty paradise. Daryl walked ahead of me, slowly stepping on the crunching black shards, his crossbow drawn up to his face in case of any walkers. I paced slowly behind him, hands lazily resting on my hips, picking my way carefully through the shining glass flecks as I steered cautiously through the cosy shop. I noted that Daryl still had his crossbow drawn high up against his nose.

"I think it's okay...put your crossbow down. We're alone." I informed him. He just stared at me incredulously.

"You don't know that." He said suspiciously. "Why d'you think that?" he asked, squinting at me. I shrugged at him and looked around me at the room that had dust swimming in the beams of light in the air.

"Instinct." I replied, putting my hands in my pockets and wandering around. He observed me carefully for a few seconds before lowering his crossbow and slinging it roughly over his shoulder. He kicked one of the display stands and several smooth stones and sparkling jewels fell out. I spun round and my eyes fixed on the items that had just dropped to the floor.

"Careful!" I snapped at him. He glanced up at me with a small smirk on his face.

"Why, scared th'owner's gonna get mad?" he mocked me. I ignored his childish behaviour and stalked through the building, attempting to work out what sort of thriving business used to be in this warm little shop. I ran my hand across the leather spines of a hundred books and my shoes gradually stopped crunching on the floor as the splintered spikes of glass ran out, revealing a smooth laminate wood floor. An unexpected smash made me spin back round to face the window, heart racing to get to my throat. My eyes, which were darting all over the shop to find the source of the noise quickly rested on Daryl, who was stood next to a pile of broken china with a slightly embarrassed tinge to his face. The fingers I'd wrapped tightly around my gun upon turning round released their grip on the handle and I threw him an extremely irritated look.

"Sorry." He grunted, sweeping the china pieces under a nearby counter as if hiding them from my sight would make me less annoyed. As I shook my head condescendingly at him, a tall and ornate display cupboard caught my attention. Everything in the shop seemed to be made of some rich, dark wood or glass and coupling that with the nature of items that we'd found (and broken) I could only arrive at one conclusion, eyes still staring fixatedly at the display.

"Think it might be an antique shop." I informed him with an air of certainty, and once again he responded by just grunting at me. I didn't bother to look at him; I knew he'd just be breaking things behind me and just making a nuisance of himself in general. I reached out and touched the cool glass with my fingertips, tracing the intricate patterns stained onto the panel and pondering what it contained. Dropping my gaze slightly I noticed a fat, rusting, heavy lock that dangled precariously, sternly keeping the cupboard closed against invasion with a measly silver chain. I held the rusting lock between my fingers for a few seconds, rotating it as far as it would allow so that I could assess just how best to get in. I glanced over my shoulder.

"Daryl!" I called, attracting his attention. I jerked my head towards the cupboard as a signal for him to come over and help. He put down a small, silver pocket watch that he'd been closely examining for some reason and wandered over. I let go of the lock I was holding and moved back a few paces so that I was in line with him, and I pointed sharply at the cupboard.

"I want in. Get in." I instructed, awaiting a less than cheerful response. He folded his arms and looked at me.

"Why?" he questioned me, thinking that there must have been a reason for my desperation to get to what was inside. Truth is, I had no idea.

"Dunno. Curious." I admitted, sheepishly looking back up at him. "So, wanna help me open it?" I asked, hoping for the best. He turned his entire body to face me and just carried on staring for a few seconds. I was just about to start working on opening it alone, when in one fluidic, calm movement Daryl dived his hand once again to my waistband to rip out my revolver and turned it to face the cupboard, before embedding two bullets into the intricately designed stain glass, his eyes screwed up against any flecks of exploding glass. I flinched violently and covered my face with my arm before letting out a very high pitched yelp, completely abandoning my dignity for the third or fourth time that day. When my heart rate finally returned to normal and I managed to stuff it back down my throat, I slowly lowered my arm and peered at the display cabinet.

"Well...that worked." I muttered, holding out my hand so that he could return my gun to me. He placed the gun roughly in my palm and walked away, leaving me to rummage through the destroyed cabinet myself.

The glass had fallen to reveal the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life; an elongated, wooden, jet black handle with silver Japanese symbols embossed onto it and an intimidatingly long but sparklingly clean silver blade. I'd found the most stunning weapon in the USA; I'd found a katana...in perfect condition. I outstretched my arm, my breathing was ragged because I was so overwhelmed by what I was seeing and I carefully lifted the perfect weapon out of its display case. I swung it out and around, being careful not to kill myself or Daryl as I did so and brought it up so that it was pointed at the beige, watermarked ceiling, glimmering silver pushed close to my face so that my breath was steaming it up a little. I looked over at Daryl, who'd registered the sudden appearance of the katana with a hilarious mixture of shock and surprise. I flashed him a mischievous grin.

"You can keep the knife." I told him, smile plastered indefinitely across my face. He shook his head in pure disbelief as I leaned carefully into the broken cabinet, carefully avoiding the glass that was jutting out of the wood to haul out the accompanying black sheath. Daryl just stared at me as he leaned to one side with his hands on his hips, still shaking his head in pure disbelief.

"You did not just find that..." he muttered. I just grinned at him and carefully sheathed the powerful katana that was in my hands, before slinging it over my shoulder much like how Daryl had his crossbow.

I suddenly felt a whole lot better about the whole end-of-the-world shit.


	27. Being the comfort blanket

As I lay in my ragged bed staring upwards, eyes unseeing because of the consuming darkness of the night, newly discovered katana resting snugly under the messy pile of belongings that sat in the middle of the tent I couldn't help but think about the people we'd lost. Sophia...Amy...they were all just people like I was before this happened and they had their lives cruelly torn from them...but they left people behind. The people that remained had to carry on, had to keep surviving even though they'd lost hugely important parts of their lives. In a sick way I was sort of glad that I'd lost everyone I loved a long time before I ended up in the camp, it meant I only really had to look out for myself...and now Daryl in a way. I glanced over, my eyes having adjusted to the smothering darkness to where he was sleeping loudly in the corner. For someone who was such a skilled tracker and hunter, he was really fucking loud when he breathed.

I listened carefully to his breathing and it just rolled along on the same track as the thought train I was having. Any day soon, the breathing noises could stop, or maybe it would be me that stopped hearing them. I slid my hand up under my pillow and turned on my side so that I faced away from Daryl and slid away into a warm, nightmare-strewn sleep.

"I can't believe you found that in town after this long, I'm amazed nobody took it!" Dale exclaimed, examining my new katana in both of his hands, peering down the perfect blade to find any kinks in the silver metal. There were none.

I'd come over to the RV for a bit of down time, things had been getting pretty hectic in the camp as chinks in our armour started to become readily more apparent. The rickety watch ledge that Shane had spent hours building had finally given up the ghost and collapsed underneath T-Dog. I laughed when I heard this because thankfully T-Dog was alright, but it made me recall what Shane had said to me when I was first on watch; 'if that thing can hold T-Dog, it can hold anything." And apparently it struggled to do that. T-Dog limped away from a long fall with his pride and dignity barely intact, which I thought was quite impressive considering he almost landed on his ass. Since nobody had been able to repair it we'd had to walk round the perimeters of the camp carrying large weapons just in case of a walker attack, and we'd restricted people from moving outside of their tents at night so that the area we had to guard was a lot smaller but it was still excruciatingly hard. There were a couple of close shaves, the worst of which being a walker stumbling into the side of Rick's tent and ending up wrapped comically in it like a large burrito. Rick and Lori were shaken but otherwise alright; Carl had the fright of his life though from suddenly sharing a bedroom wall with a walker.

I leaned nonchalantly against the outer wall of the RV, attempting to keep myself in the cooling shade of the blue and white striped lean-to that was permanently attached to the roof. I stretched out against the wall, outstretching and reaching up towards the tarpaulin that made the lean-to. Dale put the katana back in its sheath and held it out for me and I meant to reach over and grab it, but I was still stretching at the same time, so I wobbled as I flung my arm out then toppled over, gathering a small puff of dust in my face. I spluttered and thrashed around on the floor trying to clean my face as Dale just watched me, face a mixture of amusement and astonishment.

"I'm not entirely sure how much I trust you with a sword...you're a little accident prone at best." He told me slowly before extending his hand to help me up. He hauled me up and when I was solidly back on both of my feet I smiled at him.

"Yeah...so far I've gathered that Lady Luck isn't massively fond of me." I grinned at him. He smiled sympathetically at me and patted my shoulder as I unsheathed the katana and held it up. I was so unbelievably in love with it as it gave me a sense of power and unbelievably, luck. I swung it round a few times across my body, in the sideways pattern of an 8 as I attempted to integrate myself to its weight. Dale nervously edged away from me, scared that I might accidentally kill him or something. I held it high above my head and then returned it clumsily into its sheath. I wasn't half bad with it...but I certainly wasn't a ninja yet. Dale looked at me with curiosity as he went about servicing the RV. It had run almost entirely out of water and I was keeping him company as he did so. He screwed his face up as he wrenched the tank open and he spoke as he worked.

"So, you know where Daryl went today?" he inquired. I cast a squinting eye out over the camp and shrugged tiredly.

"Dunno. Probably off skinning children somewhere." I told him, only partially joking. He chuckled slightly and peered up at me, setting the wrench down and taking a few seconds to fix his gaze on me.

"Scary thing is, you're probably not wrong." He told me. It was my turn to chuckle, but a chill ran down my spine and shot through my entire body as I realised I wasn't even sure if it was a joke or not. I rested the katana that I was clutching in my sweaty palm up against the RV and Dale sat down heavily on the ground next to me, wiping his brow with a small blue rag.

"Can you jump in there and run the tap, I need to know if this thing is working." He asked me and I nodded enthusiastically. I hopped up into the motorhome, reached for the dripping faucet and turned it on. The faucet grumbled and made churning noises so I swiped it with my hand and bashed it with my fist a few times to try and convince it to do something. It made a few more glugging noises and it spurted a jet of water gushing into the sink.

"It's on." I called to Dale who seemed satisfied at the results he'd achieved. Stepping lazily out of the RV I picked up the katana on my way out and wandered around the camp with curiosity a couple of times, trying to soak up as much of my surroundings as possible. I hoped to get out into the forest and test my new katana...if nobody hijacked me before I had the chance. I walked nonchalantly into the middle of the camp and slowly turned in circles a few times, trying to see what (or who) was still milling around. I didn't see anybody on my first glance, so I set off in a sprint towards the forest, when a small voice stopped me.

"Where are you going?" it asked me timidly. I slowed right down, looking down at the floor with the ghost of a smile flickering across my face as I thought about my shit-as-ever luck. I put my hands on my hips exasperatedly and turned round so I was facing the source of the voice.

"What is it Millie?"I asked her, my voice hard but kind. She looked up at me with a worried glaze to her big brown eyes.

"I'm scared." She confessed, her thumb poised just under her bottom lip so that she could resume sucking it when she'd finished talking. I just looked at her for a few seconds before I walked closer to her and gazed out over the camp.

"Why are you scared Millie?" I inquired, ready to dismiss her childish rabble. She looked around as if searching for someone and began talking in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

"The man with the arrows scared me." She whimpered. I frowned at her for a few seconds, utterly perplexed at who she could mean. It suddenly dawned on me who she was talking about.

"Daryl? The tall, scary man with the red knife and the arrows?" I asked her, trying to be absolutely certain who she was talking about. She nodded vigorously, clearly shaken by whatever he'd done.

"What did he do?" I asked her tiredly. As harsh as it sounds I really didn't want to be babysitting her, where was Carol? She looked at the ground as tears began to well up in her eyes, and a guilty feeling began to well up inside me.

"He told me that we were all gonna die, and that the monsters are gonna eat our heads...are the monsters gonna eat our heads?" she whined to me, wiping away the tears with her sparklingly clean sleeve. Carol really had done a good job cleaning her up and slowly fixing the damage that had been done. I swung the katana over my shoulder and smiled at her, before bringing my hand to rest on her tiny fragile shoulder.

"Don't worry about him. Just run back to Carol now, okay?" I told her, smiling reassuringly. I didn't tell her Daryl was wrong...only because I knew he was right. We were all going to die, and the chances are that the walkers were going to be the cause. She nodded slowly and walked away, scuffing her tiny black shoes in the dirt as she went. I don't know how I ended up being her confidant, truth is I didn't even like kids that much, I was just trying my hardest to keep the peace and make everyone happy...I really don't know how well I was doing either.

And with that saddening thought, I traipsed off towards the forest.

_**Hi guys, I hope you still really enjoy all of the story, I promise there's gonna be some proper action in the next few chapters, and I am going back on my word...I will be starting another fan fiction once this has ended, I'm hoping to get roughly 40-50 chapters out of this one! Thank you all for reading once more, appreciate it a lot :) **_

_**-Hannah**_


	28. Trying to do right

I really don't know how to start this one, and I'm really not sure how to begin telling you the full and true extent of what happened. I'll start it as best as I can...

Panic, nothing but pure and terrifying panic. The whole camp was awoken by a blood curdling scream as the dawn came dawdling over the horizon and a new day came to rest over the old one like a cold blanket. The scream travelled quickly over the camp and hit everything that heard it like a brick to the face. Daryl and I sat bolt upright in our beds, sweat beginning to form on our faces as panic truly began to set in. His eyes darted around the tent for the source of the scream.

"Did you hear that?!" he asked me, face plastered in shock. I stared at them through the blue tinted light of the new day.

"Of course I heard it, who made it?!" I asked incredulously, standing up and pulling my t-shirt and cut-offs on as I grabbed my katana. Daryl by this point had roughly managed to get dressed and drew his crossbow high as he ripped the door open. I darted out after him and we walked straight into the ensuing chaos that surrounded our temporary home.

The first thing I noticed was the blood. The blood and the horrific noise of women screaming. There was so much blood I honestly thought everyone had died, had it not been for the barrage of blood-curdling shrieks I would have run away with my tail firmly between my legs. I quickly yanked the sword out of its sheath as a large athletically built zombie staggered towards me, its jaw hanging limply by one of its hinges with blood trickling down its rotting chin. I hastily raised the katana above my head and brought it crashing down through the top of its skull, splitting it in half and carrying on down its body as easily as if it were a melon. Finally the sword reached its crotch and exited in a flurry of blood, the two halves of its body flopped to the floor and were at last still. I was stunned for a few seconds as it was the first time I'd used the sword against a walker, and it was a little shocking to see what it could do...the evidence lay in two heaps on the floor.

"Fuckin' hell gunshot!" I heard Daryl call as he bolted past, sending a wave of arrows into the mass of walkers that ran riot around the campsite. I spun round to see where he was running to but I was halted by a dripping corpse whose festering limbs and grotesque stench of rotting flesh made my stomach churn so much that I couldn't control myself and I threw up on the dry ground in front of it. I glanced weakly up to see he creature lurch forward towards me, eyes bulging at the prospect of sinking its teeth into my back. I speedily lifted the katana up and ran it through the creature's head, destroying its brain and leaving it to crumple to the floor. I scrambled up in shock to try and help all of my friends, who by the looks of things needed help...fast.

Casting my eyes back and forth across the campsite I watched in pure horror as a walker chased a sobbing Millie across the fire pit which by now contained nothing but the burnt ashes of last night's dinner, leering at the small child as it dreamed of biting into her neck. I didn't call Millie; I didn't want her to stop running for half a second only to have her life ripped away from her. Instead, I took a few daring steps forward and attracted the walker's attention.

"HEY, ASSHOLE." I shouted at it, hoping that it would turn its attention to me to give Millie half a chance. Thankfully, she carried on running as her life depended on it, leaving the walker alone...with me. I took another step forward, watching Rick in the distance running after a screaming Carl, dragging Lori along by her arm as she sobbed in fear for her child's life. I reverted my attention back to the walker as I ignored the deafening gunshots that ricocheted around the camp and I spoke again, harshly.

"You heard me." I growled and stepped forward, raising my katana as I did so. It snarled viciously at me, like a rabid dog and as it snarled at me I let out the most rage-fuelled war cry as I thrust the glimmering sword into the vile creature's throat. I appeared out the other side and slumped as I drew my revolver from my waistband and buried a bullet deep within the skull of a nearby walker, only this one was terrorising Carol. She looked gratefully at me as I panted heavily and nodded towards the long dusty road that connected us with the broken remains of the outside world.

"She ran that way." I struggled to tell her through ragged breathing, my head still spinning from the shock of something that was once human clean in two pieces.

No matter how many walkers we killed and slaughtered, more seemed to come pouring into the camp from all around us, smothering us, closing us in. As I ran away from a pack of about 7 walkers, my lungs tight with the effort of keeping my body working, heart jumping into my mouth causing the most unpleasant taste of blood to form I stumbled slightly, lurching forward dangerously and I was close to being massacred. I regained my balance, but all I could see was the horror that had unfolded right before my eyes; a group of small children walkers, no older than 11 or 12 were crouching low over a twitching body...a twitching body that I soon recognised as Beth. My eyes began to well up again as I staggered forward, forcing myself to move faster and faster towards Beth. Somewhere deep down I guess I knew that I wasn't going to be able to save her, and that it was already too late for her. Still I surged forward, attempting in vain to save my already dead friend.

"BETH!" I shrieked, voice filling the already noise polluted air around us. She didn't respond...of course she didn't respond. I got to the group that was crowding her lifeless corpse, feasting on the cold flesh that was sprawled in the middle. I began wildly swinging the sword around and I felt it connect with a few necks, but other than that it was just irritating them, their small cold hands darted in and out of her stomach still, pulling bits of guts and entrails out. This made me even angrier, so I just let out another deafening scream. I meant to just carry on screaming and hacking away at the walker children but I felt a rough hand clamp down on my upper arm and drag me quickly away, forcing me to scream in anguish and rage. By this point my vocal chords were smacking against each other and were beginning to sting and ache, noises that were intended as screams came out as dull cries.

"NO, GET OFF ME I HAVE TO HELP BETH!" I sobbed, trying to force my way back to her. I'd not been close to her...but I hadn't really lost anybody recently, and it was coming as a tragic shock to me. The owner of the hand threw my inside the RV and climbed inside with me, slamming the door shut and flicking the lock down so that we were temporarily secured in the moving house. I slapped my hands against the door and sobbed, but tear were no longer flowing down my fatigued face. Dry sobs were the only thing that came.

"But Beth..." I moaned through sobs, trying my hardest not to picture the grim scene that was still rioting around outside. Bullets tore through the air, riding the waves of screams that came from the mouths of the trapped, faces of the damned. The morning air was dense with the stench of rotting flesh and meat...just the smell of death that hung limply across the camp on a daily basis, but magnified and more terrifying than ever. I sunk down to my knees, still dragging my hands down the door and sobbing when the person who'd dragged me to the RV grabbed me again and pulled me to my feet. My vision cleared up slightly and I realised it was Daryl who'd yanked me away from almost certainly getting eaten.

"Why won't you let me help her?" I whimpered, feebly clutching my sword and still sobbing slightly onto him. He looked at me with hard concern.

"You couldn't 'a helped her, it was too late, get used to it." He told me firmly, but not unkindly. I began sobbing harder and harder, freaking out over the death of a girl whom I'd barely known. I was the only one that had seen her, so I figured I was the only one who could have saved her. Daryl clearly felt bad for me...he probably remembered the first time he'd seen a friend die, so he wasn't expecting me to shrug it off quickly. Instead he pulled me roughly into a tight hug and gave me a minute to cry and just let all the intense anguish flood out of me. I sobered up and pulled away from him, returning to the sword that I'd dropped and gingerly dragged my hand across my face to wipe up the remaining tears. I looked at him, face still awash with sadness and I nodded at him before I pointed to the roof hatch.

"We should probably go...see what we can do for the others..." I sniffed, rapidly clambering up onto the counter underneath the sun-faded hatch and I gave it a shove with my elbow to try and open it.

"Unlock it first!" Daryl called from the other end of the RV. He'd stalked off down the other end of the vehicle to peer through the curtains. I looked at him and then returned my somewhat dazed attention to the hatch and I flicked the small locks back and forth until they finally cracked open and the cold morning air hit me like the bucket of water Rick had thrown over me in the town.

"Come on!" I exclaimed to Daryl, who ran over to the hatch and jumped up as I scrambled through the roof. I hauled myself up and then helped him through the roof so that we were both stood facing the bloodbath.

It was agony. It was unbelievably painful to watch as my friends, the people I considered family were chased and murdered before my very eyes and as I glanced over at Daryl, the dull light of the sun provided no comfort for him and he watched with a hardened face, firing razor sharp arrows into the crowd of walkers. I watched as Rick held Lori close behind him and shot wildly into a pack of decomposing corpses that tried to press themselves against them, his face contorted with rage and terror. Andrea stood back to back with T-Dog, both of them stabbing viciously at the corpses and fighting like trapped alley cats as I stood helplessly on the roof once again.

Rick threw Lori into the back of the beaten up SUV (they'd previously found and brought back fuel for it from the run-down town) and locked the back door, sealing her inside with her life and wellbeing intact. Rick glanced around while fighting off two walkers with his metal brick of a handgun looking for Carl with a mad desperation. Carl sprinted forwards from where he was cowering in a nearby tent and dived into the passenger side of the car. As Rick strode round to the driver's side of the huge SUV he shouted an instruction to the survivors of the camp that fought and fled for their lives.

"EVERYBODY GET IN YOUR CARS. NOW! GET OUT! LEAVE!" He screamed, face turning red with the fury that coated his every word. He jumped in the car and slammed the door, pulling out of the camp and away as fast as possible. I watched as other people followed his lead and the remaining people leapt in their various cars and the light blue pickup, almost invisible in the morning light so that they could pull themselves out of the nightmare that was rapidly ruining their lives. Screams were still piercing the cold air, bullets still tearing through the noise like raging bulls and there was just...chaos. Chaos and fighting, brutal, hard, bloody fighting, and some of us were losing. I turned to face Daryl, who was clambering down through the hatch back inside.

"Where are you going, aren't we gonna stay here, this is where it's safer!" I told him, gesturing frantically at the roof. Before his head went below the metal I was standing on he replied.

"Gotta get my bike." He grunted, I looked at him in horror.

"You're gonna kill yourself!" I shouted at him in exasperation, eyes wider than ever before at the thought of losing another friend. He frowned at me in complete anger.

"IT WAS MERLE'S!" He growled as he dropped into the RV. I groaned and glanced out around the camp again. 40, 50 maybe even 60 walkers still stumbled around as I watched the last of the survivors finally filter out of the camp that closely resembled hell. I crouched next to the edge of the hole and shouted down.

"WAIT!" I called to Daryl. He was unlocking the door and he looked up at me, a frown still plastered firmly across his face. I grunted a few times with the clumsy effort of climbing down before losing my footing and falling so I was a crumpled mess at his feet. I scrambled hastily up and stared into his angry, fear-ridden face with my own scarred and bruised one.

"I'm coming with you." I told him, giving a shaky grin. He raised his eyebrow and drew his crossbow ready to leave, but after looking me up and down he saw that there was no convincing me otherwise and he nodded.

"Ready?" He asked. I shrugged and gripped my katana with both hands, raising it slightly so it was across my body and resting on my shoulder, the end of the blade scratched against the roof.

As he was readying himself to kick the door open, a cough came from behind us and I jumped round to see Dale sat in the driver's seat, eyebrows raised.

"You can't go out there!" He told us, clearly filled with worry that we wouldn't survive. I shook my head at him.

"Dale this isn't the time, we're going. I'll shut the door behind me and you've gotta drive like a bat outta hell." I told him firmly, staring him down. He raised his hands in surrender like gesture.

"You don't have to follow him." He said to me quietly, the moaning noises of the walkers almost drowning him out. I nodded at him and scrunched my face up before facing Daryl.

"I know." I said, giving Daryl a look that he returned. We both realised that there was no need for me to go with him, yet we both knew I was his friend and ere was no way in hell I was going to let him face that swarm on his own. I shoved him roughly aside so that I was the one unlocking the door.

"Change of plan. You lock the door." I commanded, wrenching the door open to the rioting and messy hell that crashed around the outside of the RV and swarmed the place that had been our home.


	29. Increasing the death toll

The moaning and the cold dead arms hit me hard as I kicked the door open. The dragged their chilled, clammy hands along my arms and head trying to grab me and I felt my stomach churn violently. I swung my sword round back and forth across my body trying to hack away at the groaning mass of about 30 walkers that swarmed around the door and nearly crushed us backwards into the safety of the RV. I heard the door smack shut behind us and the shrill honking of the horn coupled with the distinctive noise of tires on dry dirt which told me that Dale had taken my advice and driven off.

Daryl and I were the last two people left in the camp.

"Deja vu, huh?" I shouted back to him as I hacked through the undead mass. Daryl didn't answer as he was far too busy shooting arrows through the heads of the dead, face screwed up in determination. I watched as he drew back the heavy metal crossbow and unleashed a carved wooden arrow into the eye socket of a nearby walker. We fought tooth and nail, showered in blood and bones with a blind burst of energy that powered us forward through the dense crowd of the undead that stood between us and the sleek silver and black motorbike that Daryl was willing to risk both of our lives for. By now he'd abandoned trying to use his crossbow, and he was just plunging his knife into the skulls of the walkers that were between us and the only thing he loved. I watched as I began to tire out as Daryl pressed ahead of me, stabbing and plunging, stabbing and plunging until he'd finally reached the bike. He hastily swung his leg over the motorcycle and reached for the high shining silver handlebars before revving the engine and speeding around the camp, leaning to pick up a large plank of wood as he did so.

For a horrifying moment I thought he'd driven off and left me at the mercy of the hungry hoard of walkers, but he circled back through the crowd whilst smashing the wood into the faces of the dead. I was battling the corpses frantically with my katana, which was now coated in blood and I was rapidly losing energy and the will to keep fighting. My vision was slowly clouding over as I groggily beat away the walkers with the sword, but without the killer instinct that had carried me easily through the pack towards the bike beforehand. I'd slowed and was about to just stop fighting altogether, when Daryl sped up into the small clearing behind me and shouted to me.

"GET ON!" He yelled in the southern accent I was now so relieved to hear. He didn't stop entirely; he couldn't, there were still about 30 walkers left around us, so he slowed down enough for me to squeeze all my effort together and leap onto the bike behind him. I awkwardly sheathed the katana and tucked it round my shoulders again, clutching onto Daryl for dear life. He made a full circle of the camp one more time...maybe he wanted to internally say goodbye to it one last time...maybe he just knew I needed to. I waved goodbye to it in my head as we sped off a final time, to a world that was full of scenes like the massacre that just occurred.

An hour after we escaped and we were still on an anonymous stretch of American highway, waiting to see a sign from our group that they'd made it out alive. We sped down the highway after the sun had fully settled in the cloudy blue sky and I cast my mind over the complete bloodbath that we'd been awoken by. I thought about Beth and felt a pang of guilt as I realised that we'd allowed her to remain lying on the cold dirt of the camp, surrounded by a pack of dirty fucking walkers. There was no dignity in the way she died, and as I thought harder about it a horrible feeling of remorse and depression welled up inside me, so I wrapped my arms even tighter around Daryl as a way of trying to comfort myself. The rushing by of the scenery didn't faze me anymore; I'd seen much more terrible things since then. I leaned my head against the wings that were embossed on the leather on his jacket and fell asleep, trying to think about everything but what I'd seen that day.

Another 20 minutes and the bike slowed down to a steady crawl and I jerked back to my senses as it ground to a halt in a grubby gas station that had an all-too familiar mint green SUV. I craned my neck to try and see the rest of the group, and I saw that they were all holed up inside the powerless shop, the doors were evidently barricaded as they'd piled chairs and shelves against them in an attempt to avoid another scene like the one we'd just left. I climbed off the bike and gave Daryl a worried look. He just stared at the shop and glanced at me...we were both dreading the moment we walked in and counted the heads that weren't there...but should have been. He switched the bike off and stepped down from it. We cautiously made our way over to the gas station and the remainder of our friends. We stopped just outside the door, obscured from view by the mass of furniture by the door. He raised his muddy fist to knock the window to let them know we wanted to get in, but his hand just hovered over the glass for a few seconds. He lowered his gaze to me.

"You ready?" he asked me quietly. I looked at the cracked glass door in front of me with a forlorn expression.

"No. But we should go in anyway." I confessed. I already knew one person who wouldn't be in there, but I quickly excused her from my thoughts once more, guilt overriding every other emotion. I just dropped my gaze to the tarmac beneath my feet and put my hands in my pockets, waiting for the rapping noise on the glass. Daryl clearly still felt bad for me, so he extended his other arm and draped it across my shoulders in sympathy, putting his hand on my shoulder consolingly. He knocked a few times loudly on the glass window and it made a pretty echoing noise but I couldn't really appreciate it in the mood I was in.

"Couldn'a helped her, quit worryin' about it." He advised as kindly as he could. I rubbed my eyes, not because I was crying (for once I wasn't crying) but just because of the sheer fatigue I was feeling. T-Dog's face appeared through the window and when he saw Daryl and I stood out in the warm mid-morning sun, beaten to shit and covered in blood but otherwise unscathed, his eyes almost popped out of his skull. He spun round to the others and called out to them, but the glass was quite thick so I didn't catch any of his excited babble. Pretty soon the exhaust ridden faces of Rick, Lori and Glenn appeared smiling at us and desperately pulled the furniture away from the door. After a minute or so of desperate pulling, the heavy glass door that was painfully reminiscent of the door at Bloomingdale's was wrenched open and Lori burst out sobbing and threw her arms around me. I was so tired and glad to see her alive and well that all of the petty shit between us melted away as I wrapped my arms tightly around her and stayed there for a few minutes.


	30. On a downwards slope

When we rejoined the group, Glenn and T-Dog had rebuilt the barrier so that we were sealed in the dingy little gas station with each other and our stories of escape and battle. I wandered across to Rick who had sat himself on the dilapidated counter, leaning carelessly on the till. I gave him a shaky smile and put both of my bloodied, trembling hands firmly on the sticky counter.

"Glad you all made it out." I told him, smile as temporary as morning frost, and almost as cold. He met my gaze and then looked down at the floor.

"We didn't." He told me, hints of upset in his voice. I nodded and dared myself to speak first.

"Beth." I whispered, as Herschel was close by. A closer look at Herschel made me realise he was unconscious for whatever reason, but I still didn't want to risk upsetting him. Rick nodded somberly at me and before I started crying he placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder and gave me a watery smile. His eyes were also red from crying...it wasn't a sign of weakness, all of our eyes were red.

"It's good to see you." He told me, closer to tears than ever. I put my opposite hand over his and nodded, before turning away and walking back towards the rest of the group. They were spread out across the store, so I took a depressing stroll around the store to see who we'd lost. I spotted Carol sat by a dirty cabinet I could only assume was once a refrigerator and I shuffled across the filthy floor to go and squat clumsily next to her. I sat silently down beside her and gave her the universal shaky grin I'd been giving everyone since I arrived. She didn't return it. I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off before I managed to get the chance.

"Andrea. She's not dead. But she's missing. And Shane..." she started firmly, but trailed off upon talking about Shane. I felt a stone like weight in my stomach fall further down inside me. I stared emptily at the floor. I felt massively ashamed of my behaviour around Andrea in the preceding weeks; I'd given her the freezing cold shoulder since she'd accidentally shot Daryl, and I'd not had the opportunity to apologise for being an ass. I placed both of my clammy hands on the cold tiled floor and pushed myself upwards so that I was standing and I began pacing around the shop. It wasn't long until I happened across a tall white door with a round silver handle. I twisted it a couple of times and wrenched it quietly open before stepping inconspicuously inside. I quietly pulled the door until I heard the click of it shutting, leaving me inside and alone. It was just a small, empty square of a room with a dingy little sink in it that was growing something totally unknown in it. I sauntered slowly over to it and rested my hands on the once white bowl, before gingerly prodding the green mush, desperately trying to take my mind off my emotional baggage.

The door clicked again behind me and it creaked open as someone stepped inside. I turned round and it was Carl, standing timidly in the doorframe.

"Hi" he squeaked at me. I looked him up and down and smiled.

"Hi." I replied throatily, too worn out for a proper response. "You made it out okay then." I stated to him, throwing him a bone and letting him know I was glad he was okay. He grinned nervously.

"Yeah, okay I guess. It was pretty scary." He confessed, glancing back towards the other main room, sadness radiating from his voice. I looked back down at the sink.

"You miss Shane. I do too." I told him almost silently. He sniffed and nodded before trudging back into the other room. I knew how close those two had been before the second attack, and it must have ripped his heart in two to have left his friend behind. I wobbled on the sink a tiny bit and let go of it before sinking to the floor beneath it. I sat beneath the white basin, leaning my head against the cold porcelain and I thought about Shane for a while. I knew everybody else would be thinking about their losses, but Shane was a bit of an underdog. Not everybody liked Shane for one reason or the other and they may have had their reasons, but all they remembered him for what he did at the camp and his various and petty relationships that he formed after the outbreak...but he was a person too.

He deserved to be remembered as Shane Walsh; the things he loved, the things he hated, what made him laugh and cry and above all...how good a friend he could be when you needed him.

As I remembered Shane and the times he'd helped me, or welcomed me, I felt a shadow flicker across the door. I lazily lifted my tired eyes up to the door and saw Daryl standing, picking at some paint on the white, peeling doorframe, my katana dangling lazily from his other hand. He glanced up at me and walked awkwardly over, tip of the long, sheathed sword almost dragging across the floor. He stopped just in front of me and leaned the sword against the wall before he stepped next to me and sat heavily down with his back leaning on the wall, almost mirroring me.

"Y'alright there gunshot?" he inquired, seemingly worried about me. I straightened my legs out in front of me and just stared at the holes in my raggedy cut-offs, not even bothering to glance up at him.

"I don't know which I'm more depressed about; the fact that I'm in a rundown gas station with a bunch of people I'd never normally talk to...or the fact that I'm here altogether." I finished dejectedly, softly shaking my head as I said it. Daryl was silent for a few seconds with one knee bent, arm leaning on it and biting the nails of his other hand nervously. He withdrew the finger from his mouth and looked at me, his eyes burning into the side of my head. I remained unmoving, stationary like an old, worn statue that had been beaten and weathered by the wind for many years until it was well past its best. I blinked a few times before I finally met his gaze. He didn't look shocked, just annoyed. Generic Daryl look.

"What?" I asked him exasperatedly as I looked at the white, stained wall in front of me. He lightly punched my arm and I frowned at him with confusion and upset. He was frowning to match me.

"Di'nt risk my ass for you over'n over for y'to go thinkin' it ain't worth it." He growled. I screwed my face up and shook my head at him.

"I'm not saying it wasn't worth it, I'm grateful for every time you stopped me getting ripped to shreds. Really, I am. I'm just in a shit mood..." I trailed off, turning my head back to opposite wall and leaning it once more on the porcelain. I sighed and listened to the dripping faucet for a few seconds.

"Shane shouldn't have died today." I croaked, no tone or expression to my voice but dull remorse. I felt as though I'd been torn in half and a huge chasm was inside me, everything that I heard or thought just bounced around inside it and echoed for a little while but never really stayed. Daryl just stared at the wall with me.

"Nobody should'a died today, but shit happens and y'gotta live with it." He said, punctuating the end of his sentence with a sniff. I had no reply to that so I just nodded and slumped so I was resting my head on his shoulder, completely and utterly drained of emotion and energy. I had no idea where our group was going to go from here and neither did Daryl...or anyone else for that matter. We just had to clutch at the fabric of fate and see where it took us.

The group stayed wedged inside the dilapidated gas-station for the night as a way of trying to recover from the shock of the massacre at the camp. It was a restless night of nightmare spattered sleep for most people, the faces of the lost danced and bounded through our dreams and exploded into the forefront of our minds like rotten fireworks on a cold winter's night. I woke up several times in a cold bath of my own sweat, images of Beth's mutilated remains dragging itself up and staggering around, bits of her falling out and off the mashed and mangled remnants of her torso and face all plagued my sleep, preventing me from getting any energy back from the exhausting battle between myself and the walkers. Each time I bolted up crying and trembling violently, Daryl was staring at me, awake as ever. I must have been making some noise in my sleep to attract his attention; I can't imagine he would have randomly stared at me all night for any other reason. After the first dream about Beth I woke up drenched in sweat and shrieking louder than a banshee on fire, which naturally caused a panic to set in and people started jumping up and dashing around to check the windows. They quickly realised it had just been a terrible nightmare, as the piercing shrieking had stopped and instead I'd replaced it with loud hard sobbing, coupled with incoherent babble about walkers and the camp. T-Dog swiftly crouched down beside me and waved his hands in front of my face to bring me crashing back to earth, but I still couldn't contain the sobs. I cried for a few minutes, until it rolled to a natural halt, and then everybody returned to their sleep once more, assured that I was alright by a worn out Rick.

The second time it happened they were less worried but more concerned for the rest of the survivors, and as soon as the familiar alarm of sweat and screaming rang out through the store, Daryl quickly paced over and picked me up off the now extremely damp floor, threw me over his shoulder and carried the sobbing, trembling wreck that was me into the smaller, white room before setting me down on the floor and shutting the white, peeling door behind us. I curled myself into a small ball on the tiles where he'd put me down and once I was all out of tears and screams I just lay there, almost comatose but awake on the floor, blinking slowly and sluggishly in the dim flickering light that was coming from the light bulb in the ceiling. Rick found the generator in the day and whacked it on for us; even though it only provided a tiny amount of light, it was something. Daryl came and crouched next to me as I lay totally still in the foetal position. He stared down at me pityingly and shook his head.

"Tha' hell happened'a you gunshot?" he asked as softly as he could manage. I slowly rolled my eyes up towards him, not really seeing him.

He was right. I'd turned into a pitiful shell of a person overnight who had the weight of her dead friends resting glumly on her conscience, and I felt the unnecessary guilt crush me as if there was something I could (should) have done to prevent their grim ends.

I couldn't bare to feel the pitying gaze of anyone, or the unbearable guilt anymore, so I gingerly closed my eyes one last time and tried to plunge myself into a relatively dream free sleep.

_**I'm sorry for any grammatical/spelling errors recently, I've been working from an iPad keyboard without spellcheck! I hope to maintain an uninterrupted update schedule over the next week, but I'm actually going on holiday so if I don't update regularly I'm very sorry! I'll make it up to you when I'm back to normal. Happy reading! -Hannah**_


	31. Unhealthily expressing feelings

Facing the rest of the group upon waking up was the hardest part; I'd unknowingly caused 2 major scenes in the space of an hour and a half, and I'd woken up countless times in a similar fashion once I'd been moved into a quieter room, only to have Daryl's relentlessly strong hand clamped across my mouth before I could commence the screaming that would wake the rest of the survivors. I knew I'd have to go in and apologise for the disturbance I caused; I made everybody panic unnecessarily. I was still sat in the white room while this train of thought chugged around lazily in my head when Daryl woke up. He didn't look like he'd had much sleep...I don't suppose he did have, he'd come in here with me to keep me quiet, and that was an all night job. Finally when it seemed like I'd calmed down and settled into a restless (but silent) sleep, he dozed off at what must have been around 6am. He'd only had about 3 hours sleep when he sat groggily up and rubbed his eyes. I was lying on my side again, finding some amount of comfort in the cool tiled floor against my battered and scraped cheek. I peered at him through my sore eyes and smiled.

"Rough night huh?" I joked morbidly. He scoffed and shook his head.

"Don't know half of it." He replied, rolling over and pressing his palms hard against his eyes. I sniffed loudly.

"Did I keep you up a lot?" I asked, apologetic tone to my voice. He nodded silently but quickly.

"On'y a little." He said through a yawn, bringing his hands down hard onto the floor, making a resonating slapping noise. I looked at the floor and closed my eyes to shield them from the harsh light of the bulb buzzing above us. It wasn't a hugely bright one, but to eyes that had known very little sleep, it was too much.

"Sorry...bad dreams. I should go apologise to the others." I stated as I pressed my palms against the floor and pushed myself to my feet. I shuffled over to the door and placed my hand on the round doorknob before pausing to look at Daryl, who was still lying wearily on the floor.

"Want me to turn the light off?" I inquired, assuming that he would want to get at least another hour of sleep before we moved on. He nodded again, only a little more calmly this time, so I smiled and pressed the grubby switch with my free hand, plunging him into almost total darkness, before stepping out to confront the raggedy survivors.

They were all awake but extremely inactive, most people just lolled against the empty shelves with a deserted glaze to their face. Rick, Dale and Glenn leaned around the counter, map slapped in the middle of them with pencil scribbled across it. I cleared my throat timidly and a few heads turned. I flashed a sheepish and apologetic grin before lowering my head. Rick looked up and straightened himself upright so that he was looking at me.

"I wanted to apologise for all of the uhh...screaming. I hope it won't happen again- it won't happen again." I corrected myself, smile flickering back across my face. A few people nodded and Lori stood up and wandered over to me, the concerned look that she often carried around me was once again welded to her face. She put her hand on my back and walked me away from the others until we stopped outside the door of the white room. She turned to face me and smiled.

"It's great to see you up and okay again." She smiled at me. I returned her smile but mine had a little more edge to it as I thought how wrong she was, I wasn't okay. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

"Thanks...at least some of us made it." I said quietly. The smiles slipped from our faces and she looked close to tears. She gazed down at the floor then back up at me again.

"Yeah, well...that's the way things are now. I just wanted you to know that..." he trailed off, struggling to push the words from her lips as they were relatively humiliating for her. I looked at her expectantly, urging her to go on.

"That I know Daryl isn't trying to murder you. I think he could have left you behind and played it cool if he wanted to...but he didn't. So there, I've said it. I trust Daryl now." She pushed the words out, glad to finally be rid of them as they were upsetting her inside. I grinned and laughed at her a little, but not maliciously.

"Lori, whilst I appreciate the incredible amount of concern you've shown for me in regards to Daryl, whether you trust Daryl or not is irrelevant to me." I said, still smiling, she looked a little wounded but tried to carry on explaining herself.

"I know, I mean, all I meant was-"she spluttered, but I waved a hand in front of her face to silence her.

"I trust him with my life. You owe him the benefit of the doubt. I trust and him that should be good enough for everybody else." I finished.

She looked like she was about to say something else to me, but whatever it was just slipped away from her tongue and evaporated back down her throat. She smiled, genuinely this time, and just nodded me away. I gave her one last look and fixed my gaze on the barren station that was full of weary looking survivors.

We'd all been through so much, it was almost hard to believe that a long time ago these people had normal lives. With the exception of Rick, Shane and Herschel, I never really figured out what everybody else had done for a living and it never seemed the right moment to ask. It was hard enough constantly readjusting to the new way of life anyway without throwing the bitter-sweet memories of what they'd lost into the mixture. If I tried really hard I could picture all of the people in various jobs; Lori could have been a realtor, T-Dog a security guard or a gym instructor, Carol a social worker or a teacher...and Daryl a mass murdering psychopath.

In the nicest way possible, of course.

As the sun sat heavily in the cloudy blanket that was the pale blue sky, I watched silently as T-Dog, Glenn and Daryl hauled the heavy metal shelves and flimsy plastic chairs away from the door. We all stood watching, silently concerned about what was waiting for us on the other side of that door, stomachs churning in synchronisation the prospect of leaving our temporary shelter. Glenn dropped a heavy lump of broken shelf on the floor with a clang and grunted.

"Swear if we don't find somewhere today and I've moved all of this shit for no reason, I'm gonna flip." he stated, exhaust filling his voice. Daryl stopped dismantling the blockade and stared exasperatedly at Glenn, hands on his hips.

"Chinaman, y'aint moved shit so far, so how's about you quit bitchin' and move the damn furniture?" he quipped with a slight hint of a malicious grin on his face. I felt a bit bad for Glenn as he'd turned bright red and pointed his head at the ground so as to hide his embarrassment. Rick resurfaced from the white room (I had no idea what he was doing in there, but he'd been on his own for the whole afternoon, requesting that nobody disturb him.) and came and stood with the group.T-Dog kicked the last plastic chair away from the door, Rick wandered over and put one hand on the door handle, the other was wrapped firmly around the handle of his gun and drawn up until it was nearly touching his cheek. He took a deep breath and took one last look around the ramshackle store that housed some very dishevelled looking survivors. Our eyes met and locked, so I sent him a look that told him I knew what was outside, and that it terrified me. His eyes said the exact same thing before he turned his focus to the group again.

"Don't take your time. Get to your vehicles. Follow me." he commanded. There was a smattering of nods as the door was wrenched open, and as we were exposed to the gruesome reality we'd become so used to.

I gripped my sword with a shaking, sweating hand and followed Daryl who had his crossbow in his hand, resting on his arm and we cautiously jogged across the desolate gas station to the shining bike that we'd arrived on. Out of nowhere came a low moaning noise, and a walker stumbled out from behind the large black bins that had been festering against the wall of the store. Its jaw hung open, clearly broken from a previous and desperate encounter with human or animals, as a small stream of blood trickled from its rotting mouth. It was a woman whose hair hung limply and thinly around her face, shrouding it in a greasy curtain which both terrified and repulsed me.

"URGH!" I shouted in horror. "FUCKING THINGS!" I screamed even louder. Something inside the breaking shell that was me erupted and boiled, seeping red hot anger through the cracks. I sprinted over to it faster than anyone else had the chance to, and still letting out a scream that chilled the blood of the entire group I reached the putrid thing. I got up really close to its face, still screaming and I gave it a hard shove in the chest.

"WHY DON'T YOU LEAVE US ALONE!?" I carried on screaming at it, almost as if it could understand me. It didn't, and it just moaned and continued struggling against me in an attempt to snack on my skin. My blood by this point was boiling with rage and I was seeing red. I clasped the katana that I'd unsheathed in the store and madly forced the sword into its left eye socket, then with my anger still swirling round in my head I twisted the handle of the blade so that I was basically blending the blackened mush that used to be a brain. The creature slumped to the floor and ceased movement...but I didn't. Withdrawing the sword, I plunged it into its stomach. The violent and unexpected action was met by a chorus of gasps and cries from the women in the group but this didn't in any way hinder my feelings. I withdrew it again and began hacking away at its limbs and face, mutilating and chopping it into smaller chunks of a once human person. I was being covered in its filthy blood as it sprayed up at me and soaked my clothing, but still I carried on. Still I carried on screaming.

"I HATE YOU! YOU DISEASE RIDDEN BASTARDS RUINED MY LIFE!" I screamed hoarsely, still hacking manically at the pile of mush and bones on the floor, sword bouncing off the tarmac and the sound resonated across the court and into the road. Nobody stepped forwards to stop me, they just watched, some from their cars, some not far behind me.

"I CAN'T SLEEP! I CAN'T SLEEP NOW! I DON'T WORK, YOU BROKE ME! YOU. BROKE. ME!" I screamed, still hacking, punctuating my screams with slashes and stabs. The corpse on the floor was just a pile of red and black glistening sinew and muscle, blood and guts spattered across me and the ground. I let out a final raw shriek while staring at it and stopped hacking. There was silence behind me that was soon filled with the noise of Carl vomiting, emptying his stomach as he wished to empty his memory of my screaming outburst. I panted heavily, face bruised and red and hair plastered to my forehead by sweat. Still panting profusely, I turned my back on the pile of blood and strolled casually back to the group as if nothing had happened. Everybody was staring at me aghast and the silence was only broken by the sound of Carl and Millie sobbing quietly in the background. I grinned at Daryl and swung my leg over the bike and perched myself on the back.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer. You getting on the bike or not?"I asked him in my most upbeat voice. He just continued to stare at me with a mixture of surprise and amusement, but he was also slightly aghast by what he'd just witnessed. I heard Carl quietly crying in the background but I paid him no attention; I was in an extremely strange mood and I didn't feel remotely bad about it. We finally all settled into our respective vehicles and slowly made our weary way to wherever the hell it was that this messed up world had in store for us.

Six hours. Six painful hours of travelling. It doesn't sound like much, but six hours on a bike with the suspension of a brick, clutching at Daryl's waist so hard I think I gave him a hernia (not great considering the 'sore' patch covering his deeply embedded bullet, isn't my idea f a comfortable ride. An hour before the end of the ride I was clinging to his waist and thinking deeply about the smoothie I'd made out of the walker back at the petrol station. I didn't regret what I did; but I certainly wasn't proud of it. I cast my mind back to what I'd screamed at it's lifeless body and I knew I hadn't been wrong. I had a life before all this...stuff. I'd been as close to happy as I could have been, I'd finished the school year alive (despite Britt Maddison and her posy of whores' best efforts), I'd resumed my part time job at Bloomingdale's and life was just on the whole, looking up a bit. I stared as the scenery and fields whipped past me, dotted with the occasional walker dragging its unwelcome body across the landscape and I wondered where we where even going. I loved Rick, he was a good man and I knew he was trying his hardest to do what was best for us all, but sometimes I wasn't entirely sure here he was going, or what he was likely to do next. I shut my eyes and attempted sleep once more. It came a lot easier now, for whatever reason I was feeling a lot more peaceful than I was last night.

Daryl pushed a shoulder roughly back so that it jolted my head, waking me up. Dazed, I looked around and saw that it was dark, and small, fairy like fireflies were fluttering around my head. Daryl turned his head sideways so I could only see half of his face.

"We're here. Wherever here is." he told me apprehensively. I glazed my eyes and stared at where he was looking. A tall, wide, white-washed house, with a tall green door and large tiled roof. It loomed, at least 2 stories high, 3 rooms wide, marked out by the large windows that were shrouded in white nett curtains. It had no garden; but whoever owned it clearly owned the land around it so there was no need for fences or borders like that. I noted the small number embossed in fine black calligraphy on a round, white, china plate which said "35". Looking back, it seems strange that the house was numbered, considering the lack of anything around it but at the time I was just concerned with getting into the apparently neat house and finding a bed that I could throw myself in. We'd had to leave most of our stuff at the camp and I wasn't sure whether Rick was planning to rescue it or not, but at the time I really didn't care. The fatigue and hunger was still nestling inside me as the food we'd found at the gas station was a bit stale and definitely not plentiful, so it had been a long while since we'd properly eaten.

"Is anybody home?" I heard a small voice from behind me. Carol had rolled down the passenger window of the pickup truck and was leaning out of it, staring nervously up at the house. Daryl and I were silent, but we slowly lifted ourselves off the bike and made our way up the short, cobbled path and stood quietly on the porch. I looked up at him in an attempt to register at emotion was dashing across his face.

"D'you think we should knock first, or...?" I trailed off. He sniffed and nodded, then raised his hand and knocked loudly and abruptly on the door, disturbing the silent peace that had enveloped the forest we were in. The echoing of the knocks stopped and there was some more pressing silence. I was just about to open my mouth and tell him nobody was home, when he swiftly brought his foot up to the door and gave the wood next to the door a hard kick, attempting to remove the lock. The door didn't budge, but I slapped his arm.

"Don't be an ass!" I hissed. "A: We don't know what's in there, and B: What if we need to stay there, and you've royally fucked up the lock?!" I asked him irritably. He glared at me and grunted. T-Dog stepped up to the door and stood between us silently. He wrapped his hand around the doorknob and twisted it a few times back and forth. It still didn't open, and it was definitely locked. Daryl and I both turned our heads in unison to stare at T-Dog like he was some sort of moron. He noticed our staring and shrugged.

"Had to check. Maybe the back's open." he suggested. I opened my mouth to argue; but maybe he had a point. I shrugged and nodded at Daryl and pointed round the house as a signal to go round the back so that we could finally move into our potential new home.

The back of the house was equally as clean and tidy as the front. The white walls were perfectly flat and had no trace of dirt on them, the doors at the back were sliding glass doors with tiny stained glass window paintings of shaky hummingbirds and dumpy fairies. It was evident that young girls had once lived here; something which I'm sure would massively please Daryl. Dale, who had followed us round the back before the rest of the survivors, clearly had the same thought and we shared a grin, then looked at Daryl. He was staring disdainfully at the fairy and sniffed before he slumped his shoulders and began attempting to open the doors.

After a considerable amount of persuasion, the glass door shifted and rolled open, allowing us access to the house. Daryl and T-Dog were the first in the house, carefully scanning all of the rooms for the evils from the outside. The rest of us waited in the large, mint green kitchen observing our new home. The walls, although mint green on the top half, were lined carefully with shining white tiles which sported small protruding pictures such as bunches of grapes and little apples and chickens. I didn't care much for the decor; a house is a house. I wandered over to Dale, who was testing the taps and I leaned against the glimmering silver draining board that was set in the countertop next to it.

"This house looks like my old house." I told him. He gave me a really strange look. "The one that they found me in." I explained, nodding at Rick and Glenn. He nodded at me and carried on twiddling with the taps.

"I heard about that. How'd you manage to stay on your own for so long?" He inquired, gazing out of the window above the tap out into the trees around us. I'd hauled myself up onto the draining board and I was sat, slumped over so that I was staring at the floor, thinking.

"Honestly Dale, I don't remember. It was pretty easy I think. All the days just melted into one after a while, find food, get back, cook food, eat food, sleep. Nothing really got interesting, I stayed upstairs most of the time. Walkers struggled with those stairs...they were good stairs." I recalled wistfully, slightly melancholic for my old house. It was beautiful but I loved my friends more. I looked over at Dale, who had long finished twiddling, and was now just leaning his wrists on the taps, staring out the window. He glanced at me and grinned.

"My house was beautiful. My wife loved it, she was really proud of her house. She always used to say 'You may have bought it, paid for it, worked for it and furnished it, but we both know it's my house.'...she was always funny like that." he said, a ghostly smile haunting his aged face. I patted his shoulder consolingly and slipped away from the draining board, and exited the kitchen.

I knew randomly wandering down the halls of a strange house was dangerous, but I was still extremely tired and just wanted to find somewhere to sleep. I paced down the wallpapered corridor, the cream paper soothed my aching eyes, and I peeped into the first room I came across. The tan wood door was ajar, so I pushed it slightly and walked in. I stepped into a large , light golden coloured room at was lined with sitting room furniture. There was a large TV perched in the corner, but I knew before getting excited that it didn't work. Apart from generators, there had been literally no electricity, and we'd just been living day-to-day for so long we'd come to accept that. I was infinitely more excited however, to find two brilliant white cotton couches lining the wall opposite the TV. Without giving any concern to the possibility of lurking walkers, I threw myself down on it and blacked out in the deepest sleep I'd had in a while.

**I apologise profusely for the delay, Internet here is awful! Hope you enjoy! **


	32. Laying down ground rules

Third Person Narrative.

A girl flopped onto the good-as-new couch at the house that once belonged to the Pearson's. It was almost impossible to tell that she was a teenager, as her face has been hardened and aged by the horrors and losses that she'd seen and suffered over the past year and a half, the bruises and scars that lined her face were almost tattooed as a permanent feature, a tribute to what the world had become. Her hair had grown since last she bothered to check, if she removed it from the tangled and knotted bun she kept it piled in, it would tumble about her shoulders and curl with an elegant mess. Her dull, brown, sunken eyes were highlighted by the shadows that encircled them, regardless of how much sleep she'd had. She had fallen asleep into the heaviest, most pure and deep sleep she'd had in a long time, untroubled by the visceral images that permanently circled around in her head. She'd been lying there on the couch for about 6 undisturbed minutes before she was joined by others from her dishevelled and grief-stricken group.

The small number of sad and weary looking people all trickled into the group, being quiet immediately after they'd seen the battered girl lying on the couch, deep within her own mind. Two other people joined her on the couch; she may have been lying down, but she was so small and wiry, and the couch was long and relatively wide. A woman with short silver hair wandered over and perched herself next to the girl's feet, wringing her hands with an overall air of distress and concern about her, shortly followed by a tall, well built man with short brown hair and a hard face. He dropped a large, grey crossbow down on the floor next to the end of the couch where the girl's head was and darted his gaze around the group.

"All clear. Got nothin' to worry bout for now." he informed them in a gruff southern accent. Looking at his khaki green wifebeater and his torn denim jeans, was certainly obvious to most people that he was a redneck, but there was something different and disconcertingly strange about him. He looked down at the sleeping girl on the couch and the smallest, tiniest flicker of a smile darted across his weathered face, but it was so fast that it might not even have happened. His piercing eyes darted around the room once more; only this time it was to check that nobody had seen the invisible smile. Nobody had, so he prodded the sleeping girl in the shoulder.

"Gunshot." he called to her quietly, shaking her a little, testing her. She was so deeply intoxicated by sleep that she didn't even stir, despite his best efforts. He slid his huge arm (huge in comparison to the small girl and generally huge through the effort of permanently lugging around a huge crossbow) underneath the girl's neck and lifted her up into a sitting position. He quickly darted and sat down where he'd just lifted the girl up, and allowed her to lean limply against his shoulder, so that she was sleeping with her head resting on his shoulder. The fatigued sheriff looked questioningly at him.

"Ain't gonna sit on th'floor like a fuckin' kid." he muttered. A few people sniggered and averted their gazes to the sheriff, who was leaning against a grand, golden plated fireplace. It was decorated and had a beautiful pattern of swirls and notches on it, and the sheriff leaned against it as nonchalantly as if he were used to that sort of thing. He was silent for a few minutes, staring at the floor to try and piece together a disjointed string of words that was circling around in his head.

"We need more rules...what happened at the camp...shouldn'ta happened. If we can work more closely together, we can survive this." He told the weary group firmly, even though less than half of them were listening. He looked up and around at all the tired faces around him, trying to register who was there and who they'd lost. A frown crept across his face and deeply scarred his brow.

"Where's T-Dog?" He questioned. The redneck answered after a moment of silence.

"Found a bed, he's asleep. Like th'rest of us should be." He muttered. The sheriff ignored him and carried on speaking.

"Rule number one: Nobody sleeps alone. We all need to share rooms in case of an emergency, safety in numbers." He stated, no trace of happiness in his voice. There was silence except for the quiet snuffling noises of the children and the sleeping teenager. The atmosphere in the room was damp; the mood and the sadness flopped over the group like a wet blanket, smothering and choking them. The beaten and weathered sheriff looked around the group one more time and spoke quietly with pity in his voice.

"Go find bedrooms. We can talk about the rest of the rules tomorrow when everybody's present." He said kindly, nodding at the teenager and smiling. There was some bustling as the remaining people jostled to find people to pair off with and become roommates before they ended up with someone they really didn't particularly like, and they slowly climbed the wooden steps up to the rooms that would replace the months of sleeping in damp, cold tents. The redneck stood alone in the room with the sheriff, as a tall brunette smiled at him and shuffled out of the room with the remainder of the survivors, ushering a meek, young boy out with her. The redneck wandered over to the huge window and stared outside into the black pit of the night. The sheriff turned to leave the room and hesitated at the door.

"Daryl?" he called. The redneck named Daryl turned and looked to him.

"Mmm?" He grunted back, not really taking a massive interest in whatever it was the sheriff had to say. The sheriff was silent, so he replied properly.

"What, Rick?" he asked, slightly exasperated. His face was similar in layout to the girl; the eyes had become shrouded in fatigue, the cheeks were both defined through months of eating to survive, not snacking and pecking and they both bore bruises and scars similar to each other...similar to battle scarred warriors. The man named Rick just drummed the door with his fingers, seemingly pondering what to say next.

"Look after her." He finally said softly. Daryl continued to stare out of the window and just grunted in response. Rick saw that there was little point in pressing his point further, no matter how important he felt it was, so he slunk out of the door and padded up the wooden stair in pursuit of his wife and child. Daryl sat in the sitting room for a little while longer. His face was just a blank canvas but there were a million and one thoughts running though his head. He just gazed into the room and to where the girl was lying. He watched her sleep for a few minutes, every now and then averting his gaze to the window to check for ambling walkers, but always returning his eyes to the teenager on the couch like a watchful guard dog.

The previous few nights had proved difficult for her; the first night being the cause for two turbulent nights of distressful and disturbed sleep. He sat silently, observing to make sure she wasn't having any more nightmares. She slowly began to stir, weakly swatting her arms in the air and moaning quietly. He tensed, ready to leap up and wake her, but her swatting turned to feeble twitches and her moaning turned into tears and whimpering. He relaxed slightly, but then she began to speak quietly through the tears in her sleep, speech slurred and repetitive.

"Shane...Shane...no...not Shane..." he heard her moan. He squinted at the pitiful girl in front of him and sighed silently. Tears trickled down her face, bathing her bruises in soothingly warm water and although she clearly wasn't enjoying her dreams, they were of no threat to anyone...and it had been so long since she'd slept that he decided to just let her ride the dreams out. He quietly stood up and walked over to the couch and he crouched down next to where her head was. Up close, he could see the dried blood from a walker that she'd previously destroyed on her forehead as it mingled with her sweat and streaked down her face, covering the scars and bruises in fresh blood that just dripped off her cheek and unceremoniously crashed onto the couch, staining it permanently. He gingerly reached out and clumsily wiped some of the blood off her face before retracting his hand and just staring at her sunken and closed eyes.

"Shit Harper. You best be okay soon." he whispered, almost sadly. He tugged on a blue and pink knitted blanket that was draped over the back of the couch and covered the tiny teenager with it, ensuring that it was far enough from her face that she didn't accidentally inhale it and suffocate in her troubled sleep. She snuffled and turned away from him and buried her face in the back of the soft couch to continue her delirious slumber. He laughed at her sudden movement and just looked incredulously at her.

"You're even'a bitch in your sleep, y'know that?" he asked her rhetorically, still a faint smile was clinging to his face. He took one last look at her and stood up before walking over to the other identical couch and throwing himself down on it, asleep almost as soon as his head touched the large, squishy arm. The two of them stayed there than night; no safer there than anywhere else in the world, but in each other's company even when unconscious they felt safer than they'd been in an awfully long time.

POV Harper

I woke up on the couch a little cramped but otherwise okay and well rested. I looked down at my body and noted that someone had bothered to cover me while I was asleep with a twee knitted blanket. I rubbed my eyes and groggily peered around to see the room in the light for the first time. No shock that Daryl was passed out on the other couch, breathing heavily through his nose.

Seriously. I needed to get that guy a fucking plug or something.

He stirred, possibly suddenly aware of the fact I was awake. They say that if you suddenly wake up from your sleep in the middle of the night there's an 80% chance it's because someone (or something) is watching you, so he must have felt my stare boring into the top of his head. He heaved himself into a sitting position and gazed tiredly around until he was me staring at him.

"What?" he asked groggily. I just beamed at him, but apparently this annoyed him for some reason.

"What?!" He asked again, this time with more exasperation in his voice. The smile slid from my face and I blinked a few times.

"You need to chill out. Seriously, take a chill pill." I teased. He smirked slightly and stood up, before flouncing out of the room and into the kitchen. I sighed and jumped up after him. I walked quickly after him, chasing him down the hall.

"Oh will you just stop being so moody!" I called while grinning. I don't know why I was in a good mood, maybe it was the undisturbed sleep I'd enjoyed. I called out again.

"Are you having a man period? Are you on the manopause? Manstruating?" I joked, laughing at my own wit. We reached the closed kitchen door and he put a hand on the handle before turning round to look at me, I could see he was trying not to laugh as well.

"D'you ever shut up?" he asked me, annoyed tinge to his voice but at the same time still trying to not laugh. I grinned up at him and forced his hand to turn the handle. We stepped inside the door to the kitchen and joined the members of our group who were already awake. Rick and Lori were sat at the long white table that was tucked into an alcove in the wall and were both focused on the coffees that perched in front of them. The previous owners had left behind a couple of tins of coffee and other assorted cans of food; it was like a treasure trove to us. Dale was stood at the sink again, only this time with Carol perched on the draining board next to him and Millie and Carl sat on the floor next to the back door, talking quietly to one another about anything that crept into their heads...the children of the apocalypse. I silently observed this scene and walked further into the room behind Daryl before hauling myself up and sitting on the white washed island in the middle of the room. The cupboards and island were all the same colour; the white paint, although peeling it still looked cute and twee, and the cracked and rustic wood was adorned with delicate pink roses painted onto the panels.

I stared at Lori for a few seconds as she sat trembling slightly, nervously staring into the coffee mug in front of her. It was painfully obvious that her and Rick had been fighting again; the red bloodshot eyes were a giveaway that showed herself and Rick had fought. They did that frequently, more times that I teased Daryl. I didn't like getting involved in their arguing, I liked both of them too much to be roped into choosing sides, but everyone knew they'd been fighting. They both looked terrible. Rick saw me staring and cleared his throat to attract everybody's attention. We all gazed at him and he began speaking.

"As I was saying last night; we need more rules. We'll survive longer if we lay down some more rules." he stated sternly. I turned to my other side to look at Daryl who was standing next to where I was perching. I don't know whether it was a tribute to how tall he was, or how tiny I was, but he was taller than me even when I was sat down on the tall kitchen unit. I glanced back at Rick who was watching Carl thoughtfully.

"Rules?" I whispered hesitantly to Daryl, questioning tone in my voice. I'd fallen asleep as soon as my head hit the couch, so I'd miss whatever they were talking about the night before. He just smirked at me and nodded. I stared wide-eyed at him, beckoning him to explain more but he just nodded to Rick which basically was code for 'shut the fuck up and listen.'

"Rule number 2; nobody goes anywhere on their own. You go with another person." Rick said more nervously, as he glanced briefly at Daryl to gauge his reaction. I felt Daryl tense up next to me in anger; he made a point of hunting alone, and with the new rule this wouldn't be possible. I elbowed him to stop him from saying anything to Rick.

"Rule number 3; 2 people are always to be in this house. No arguments. We can't afford to lose this place as well." He stated sadly to the rest of us. I glanced at the floor and remembered the camp with a heavy heart. Rick sighed, clearly thinking the same as me and he rested his hands on his hips, suddenly I could see how the horrors of the world had really aged him terribly and I felt a pang of pity for him. He sighed deeply, and he no longer had the heart to set any new rules.

"That's it for now...just..." he trailed off, flopping back onto his chair opposite Lori. I glanced at Daryl with a guilty look in my face before sulking off into the house. He followed me not long after that, rubbing his head as he did so.

"Where you goin'?" he asked curiously. I didn't turn to look at him, I clutched the end of the banister and swung round it so that I was facing the stairs and in turn, Daryl.

"So what's rule number 1?" I asked, jogging up the stairs as I did so. He sighed and jogged after me.

"Just some shit 'bout havin'a share rooms." he informed me from behind. I reached the top of the stairs and darted to the middle of the corridor before what he'd said had properly settled in. As soon as it clicked that I had to have a roommate, I stopped abruptly and spun round so that he nearly crashed into me. I gazed up at him theatrically and rapidly blinked my eyes at him, jokingly trying to convince him I was an innocent child.

"Roomie?" I simpered sickeningly, smiling serenely up at him. He looked down at me, a relatively confused and disgusted look on his face.

"On'y if y'never do that again." he grunted. I turned on my heels and stuck my hands in my pockets before wandering off down the hall, still laughing.

"Don't pretend you don't love it." I quipped, snapping back to my usual self. I stopped outside a gorgeous oak door with a silver handle. I glanced at Daryl and pointed to it as if suggesting that room become the one we stay in, before putting my hand on the handle and wrenching it open. In one movement I opened the door and stepped inside before realising who was already in there.

"GET OUT!" I heard Maggie scream as she wrapped a white sheet around her otherwise exposed body, and the noise of Glenn throwing himself on the floor by the far side of the bed. I panicked and backed rapidly out of the room.

"AH JESUS CHRIST I'M SORRY!" I shouted as I backed out and slammed the door, face burning red. Daryl stood in the hallway laughing his ass off at me as I slowly turned redder and redder, eyes still popping out of my skull.

"I think you should shut the hell up!" I hissed at Daryl before releasing my grip on the door handle. "You find a room then!" I said shrilly, annoyed by his continuous and hard laughter. His laughter eventually died down and he walked forward, still giggling a little at me and opened another, identical door, only to reveal another room, only this time it was totally empty. He turned to me with a smug grin plastered across his beaten up face. I glared at him.

"I hate you sometimes, redneck." I complained. He still grinned at me and even though he was my friend, he was going to be insufferably annoying. Either that or we would be insufferably annoying for the rest of the group.


	33. Obeying the sheriff

A week had trawled by in the new house and it had been extremely uneventful really. Wake up, have a lecture about something from Rick, chit-chat with the others, mill around, eat food, another lecture, joke around with Daryl for a while and sleep. As boring as an apocalypse can get.

About 6am or so in the cold November morning and I was sleeping soundly on the soft, memory foam mattress with my ghoulish nightmares safely tethered away deep within my subconscious, not affecting my sleep for once. Even though the dreams weren't affecting my sleep, something else was.

"Gunshot." Daryl whispered, prodding me in the back sharply with his index finger. I frowned, not opening my eyes, hoping that if I just pretending to be asleep, he'd stop bothering me. He didn't.

"Gunshot!" He hissed slightly louder this time. "I know you're awake!" he said, again raising his voice a bit. I groaned.

"What do you want? I'm asleep." I told him, speech slurred through my tiredness. He put his hand on my shoulder and dragged me back towards him so that I was lying on my back, facing the ceiling. I was already frowning at him when he rolled me over.

"Need someone'a go huntin' with." He explained. My frown deepened. I yawned, so my face had a strange twist in it from me trying to maintain the scowl.

"I've never gone with you before...why do I have to now? Why 6am?!" I yawned angrily. He shook me again, this time I think he was doing it for fun more than anything else. I slapped him away and kicked out at him.

"Nooo, stop shaking me!" I commanded meekly. He laughed at me and continued his explanation.

"Dumbass new rules, need someone'a go with." he explained. I sighed deeply and gazed at him with puppy dog eyes, hoping to convince him to let me stay in bed. He slapped my face lightly.

"Don't gimme that look, you're comin' with me." he finalised. I scowled at him again before heaving myself out of bed and beginning to get dressed. We were sharing the smallest bedroom in the house, but it wasn't a bad size; there was enough room for a large, rich brown armoire and a queen sized bed. Since there were no spare blowup beds or sleeping bags we had to share the bed, and I never hated him more than when forced to share a bed with him. I found myself on the floor at least 3 times that week, and the last time it had happened I'd leapt back into the bed but 'accidentally' misjudged my aim and landed on his stomach, temporarily winding him...and definitely waking him up. I was cursed out of the room for a few minutes, before running back in and doing exactly the same thing, but laughing my ass off while I did so.

I was pulling my tattered and worn clothes on and followed him out of the room and wearily down the stairs, dragging my sheathed katana as I did so. He paced quickly towards the back door and I had to jog to keep up with him, grumbling incoherently as I did so. I caught up with him at the back of the large house, dragging my katana and scowl along with me.

"It's cold outside Daryl!" I whined. "I'm gonna freeze my ass off! I'm not going." I moaned. He stood still in front of me for a few seconds, staring me up and down, his crossbow resting in his hands. He looked at my sorry mess of a face and nodded at me sympathetically.

"Okay." He agreed. I popped my eyes, thinking I may have misheard him.

"Really?!" I asked him, shocked. He held the crossbow with one hand and slapped me across the top of my head.

"No, get your ass outside." He commanded, irritated. I maintained my scowl when I stepped outside, but as I felt the cold morning air slap my face, I gasped and adopted the surprised face that made Daryl laugh so often. I glowered at him and he stopped laughing and started picking through the forest.

"You gotta cheer up, y'know that?" he asked. I nodded to myself slowly behind him, jogging slightly to keep up with the huge strides he was taking through the forest. We carried on walking for at least 20 minutes before he stopped and crouched down on the earth,observing the trail of a small animal. I gazed around at the floor to try and figure out what it was he was looking at. He glanced up and observed me staring at the earth with my brow furrowed. Frowns were a permanent feature on my face.

"You see that?" he asked, pointing just ahead of him. I squinted at the dead, brown leaves that littered the ground around us, and shook my head.

"No. Not really." I said honestly. I was still in a pretty foul mood from being woken up so early in the morning, but I wasn't going to keep whining or he'd probably skin me. He leaned forward and touched the earth where he'd been pointing, and signalled for me to come closer and have a proper look. I sighed quietly and fell to my knees heavily next to him, bruising my legs as I did so. With this lifestyle, bruises were just another thing you had to put up with.

"Still not sure what I'm looking for, redneck. Care to explain?" I sniffed, staring hard at the ground. He stared at me for a few seconds, as if trying to work out what I was thinking, then glanced back down at the ground. He shifted a couple of leaves around with his hand and sprang up, following the invisible trail that would lead us to dinner. I was trailing wearily along after him, but apparently I wasn't running fast enough for his liking, so he grabbed me by the upper arm and dragged me along until I'd hit a full on run which really drained me of energy by the time he found a suitable bush to throw and hide me in. I was scratched to shit and my face was once again a bloody mess from the sticks and sharp twigs that dug into my head and neck. Immediately afterwards, he jumped in the bush himself and crouched next to me, staring out at the small patch of clear ground a few metres in front of us. I stared at him for a few seconds, exhausted and annoyed.

"Care to tell me why-"I began, but he immediately clamped a hand over my mouth, much like he'd done the first time we were on watch together, and brought the other hand up to his mouth in a 'shh' gesture. I frowned at him and held my hands up, as if telling him I wouldn't talk. When he seemed satisfied that I wouldn't, he carefully removed the hand that was restricting my mouth. I scowled intensely at him.

"No talking." he explained in a hushed tone. I sighed and rocked off my knees and onto my ass so that I was a little more comfortable. I sniffed a little bit too loudly and received a swift punch in the upper arm.

"OW!"I exclaimed, deliberately loudly to annoy him. He glared at me, and after that I knew he was serious about the whole 'quiet' thing, so I crossed my legs and stayed silent for the remainder of the hunt.

A few hours had passed and he'd caught 4 possums. I suppose other creatures had started to creep into hibernation, so over the next few months things were going to get very difficult for the group. Daryl decided that what he'd caught was all he was going to be able to catch, so he stood up from the bush and stepped out of it. I was doodling with a stick in the dirt, and suddenly I was dragged from the bush by the back of my shirt...but not by Daryl.

I felt the cold grasp of a walker grip tightly around the scruff of my shirt and I was dragged backwards so that it could get a more clear route to my face. I cried out in shock and kicked with my legs, trying to propel myself out of its dead grasp. I latched my hands onto its clammy wrists and I tried to pull them away from me, but as I pulled, there was a sickening crunch as its left hand was pulled from its socket, and the indescribable sound of tearing skin filled my ears. I jerked and rolled away from it.

"HOLY SHIT!" I gasped as I stared own at the hand that was inside my own palm. Daryl loaded his crossbow quickly, and just as the foul thing lifted its congealing face and snarled at us, he released an arrow into the space between its eyes. It slumped and crashed to the ground, as I was left holding part of it in my very alive hand. There was silence between us for a few seconds while I tried to regain my breath, and I looked up and nodded gratefully at him as he stared down at the dead body before us. He walked over to it slowly and viciously stamped on its head, bursting it like a grim watermelon of blood. I threw the hand down on the ground next to its head and broke the silence.

"You may not have noticed, but I really don't like those things." I joked nervously, nodding at the corpse on the cold floor. He laughed shakily and pulled the arrow out of its head, a trail of slimy blood clinging grimly to it. He wiped the blood on my tshirt and put it back in its holster.

"Charming." I told him, a sickly smile creeping across my face. He grinned at me, proud of himself.

"Think of it as a 'thank you' for me savin' your ass again." he told me. I shrugged, still smiling and we began walking back towards the house, the 4 dead possums swinging off his arm, fur ruffling almost peacefully in the cool november breeze.


	34. Revealing a long forgotten vice

The window in the bedroom was tinted orange from the stunning glow of the sunset, dashed with pink glares that settled on top of the fiery sky and weaved between the sparse, fluffy clouds that danced gracefully across the evening sky. I sat on the window seat beneath the tall, wide window, one leg bent on the seat, the other dangling off the edge, arm resting on my knee with my and touching my mouth gently as I thought about everything and anything. Now there were no electrical devices and other forms of entertainment had been lost, there was little left to do besides wonder where you were going next, and which breath would be your last.

Grim, I know.

I sat in silence and watched a flock of crows glide across the sky to wherever the hell it was birds went for the winter as the door swung open on the other side of the room, and Daryl stepped through, looking relatively pissed off about something.

"You look happy." I noted, observing his face in the reflection of the window. He scoffed at me.

"Shut up." he snapped. I turned my neck to face him, wearing a mildly wounded expression.

"I was just saying...why so serious?" I asked him, echoing a much loved batman villain of mine. The reference was lost on him as he stomped over to the bed and flung himself down on it like a moody teenager. He sat fuming for a few seconds, calming down enough to talk to me properly.

"Carol, tryin'a run my life...wish she'd quit worryin' about me, I'm not her kid!" he nearly shouted. I sat quietly for a few seconds.

"You shouldn't say that. You know she misses her kid." I said quietly. He rubbed his eyes and laughed morosely.

"Ain't my fault she lost her damn kid." He spat. I looked at him, shocked expression tinged my face.

"I know it wasn't your fault, but you don't have to be such an ass about it. Why does it bother you so much that people actually care about you?" I questioned him irritably. He sat up and shrugged, not facing me so that he could avoid my laser like glare.

"I can look after myself." he concluded. I laughed in derision.

"Does wittle Daryl want to be weft awone?" I cooed, voice dripping with my scornful and mocking tone. He spun round and glared at me. I dismissed his rage and laughed again.

"Accept it, we all care about you; we care about each other." I turned back to face the window and the setting sun. "You're not the only one who can do it alone." I finalised quietly, casting my mind back to the grey warehouse where I'd woken up nearly two years before. He noticed my pensive face and laughed throatily.

"You were nothin' but a scared little kid when we found you." he reminded me mockingly. I frowned, not bothering to look at him.

"Scared doesn't even begin to describe it." I spat, sadness and bitterness littering my voice. He must have felt slightly guilty at that because he didn't press on. We stayed in silence for a few seconds while he fiddled awkwardly with the silver bedpost.

"Y'already had scars when we found you." he finally said gruffly. "Where'd they come from?" he asked quietly. I snapped my head round and frowned at him, fingers automatically darting to my side, as a painful glimpse of Shane shot through my head. He shook his head.

"No, the ones on your arms. Ain't no walker done that before, so where'd they come from?" he asked again patiently. I raised my arms and he was right; beneath the fresh slashes and cuts on my arms lay multiple welts and tiny circular scars. I looked at him and raised an eyebrow before a twisted and creepy grin flickered across my face.

"Needles." I told him through the sickening smile. "Lots and lots of needles." I finished. He raised both of his eyebrows, momentarily shocked.

"Y'ain't a normal kid are you? he asked rhetorically, smiling slightly to match my own. My grin fell and became a sad little smile.

"You have no idea." I told him, returning my gaze to the window, bringing my knees up under my chin and clasping them to my chest so I looked about 6 years old, pouting at the dying sun. He wandered over to the window seat and sat opposite me, staring at the outside with me. We watched lazily, but not helplessly as a small walker bumbled out of the forest and circled a tiny tree growing in the overgrown garden before staggering back off into the woods behind it. I let out a small giggle at it, but felt a pang of guilt as I noticed the walker was no older than 7 or 8. The smile slid cleanly off my face and I was silent. I looked over at Daryl whose expression was unreadable.

"Where's home then?" I asked him quietly, trying not to disturb the peace. He broke his stare from the window and glanced at me, thinking carefully about the question and a frown began to creep across his face.

"Here, why d'you ask?" he said quizzically. I just frowned and shook my head at him.

"No, not here...I mean before the world went to shit." I explained to him, clearing the confusion. "Where was home for you before the walkers came?" He looked at me for a few seconds and then back out the window at the deep blue sky, scattered in stars. The stars were a lot easer to see now that the fumes from the cities had died down.

"Little house in North Georgia. Lived with Merle n'our old folks." He told me. I wanted to grimace at the thought of Merle, as I'd been told all about the white supremacist Merle Dixon and he didn't sound like a charming sort of guy...but it seemed as though Daryl hadn't even really told anyone this, so I just watched and stayed quiet, nodding my head slightly. He finished and watched me expectantly, then pointed a finger at me and made a shooting gesture, wanting me to reply.

"Me? Virginia. Parents and dog, house in the suburbs. Nothing unusual." I told him, head resting against the wall behind me. He cocked an eyebrow at me in an unbelieving manor and I smirked.

"Alright, I was the unusual thing." I confessed, putting emphasis on the word. I grinned at him.

"I wasn't an easy kid." I levelled with him. He laughed at me slightly and closed his eyes, mirroring me by leaning his head on the wall behind him.

"Join the club." he said gruffly. I peered at him with one eye open.

"So tell me, one problem child to another...what did you do?" I asked curiously. A smile broke out across his face as he answered.

"Ran away when I was 9. Merle'd gone to juvi, Ma'd drunk herself into a stupid mess n' our old man'd run off with some whore." He explained. I raised my eyebrows, a smile beginning to creep across my face. Daryl Dixon had once been a child?!

"Lived in th'forest for 'bout 9 days eatin' berries n' wipin' my ass with poison ivy. Ass itched somethin' awful." He told me. I'd been on the verge of laughing all throughout his story but at the poison ivy revelation I lost it and burst out laughing. He smiled at my reaction and watched me laugh, before gently kicking me.

"Oh my god, sorry but that's pretty funny." I spluttered, trying to contain myself. My laughter died down and the smile slid cleanly off his face.

"What made you such an asshole kid then?" he asked abruptly. I looked out of the window, casting my mind back to life before the dead. I shrugged.

"Well, I definitely didn't run away...or live in the forest. You win there." I told him with a smirk. "Just...the wrong crowd. Illegal stuff. Not being able to keep my mouth shut. It seems hard to believe but I got beat up quite a lot." I confessed sarcastically. He let out a small laugh and pointed to my arms.

"Illegal stuff?" He deduced. I nodded and grinned.

"Not that we have to worry about that sorta shit anymore. One kind of scum gets wiped off the face of the earth and another replaces it...just doesn't seem fair." I said sadly, crinkling my forehead. He nodded and couldn't find an adequate response, so we sat in silence thinking about what we'd just revealed. I couldn't stand the silence for too much longer.

"Lori reckons your dad used to hit you." I blurted out. As soon as the words came out I squeezed my eyes shut and wish I could rip them from the air. I opened my eyes cautiously and saw him glaring at me, but I don't think it was me he was angry with. His jaw was clenched and I really wasn't sure what to say to defuse the situation.

"I'm not sure why I said that. Forget I said anything." I said in a voice barely more audible than a whisper. Over the next few tense and silent minutes, his anger dissolved and he jumped up from the window and threw himself onto the bed without saying a word.

I think he'd answered the question that had been burning in the back of my head.

**I'd like to thank you all for reading once again, but I just wanna clear something up; this isn't a love story between OC and Daryl, that was never the intention and I'm sorry if that's how it's seemed. It's always supposed to have been an unlikely friendship between the two characters and just the group dynamic in general. Sorry if that's disappointed people, but this was an idea I had one night and just wanted to see where it would end up. I'm trying to close up this story, there are only gonna be a few more chapters, 5 or 6 at most, but as soon as I'm finished work experience I'll be starting another one...only with more romance and gore! **


	35. Recapturing a lost youth

"OWWWW!" I yelled, my voice ringing out across the bedroom. "CAN YOU FUCKING NOT?!" I snapped, giving Daryl a solid push. It had happened again, I'd ended up on the floor next to the bed because he'd managed to starfish in the middle of the bed. My shouts weren't what woke him; the slap-like shove I'd given him did that.

"You fucking suck." I grumbled, punching him in the side while standing at the edge of the bed. I glanced at the large blue clock on the wall and discovered that it was 3AM. I groaned and flopped back onto the bed so that I was deliberately crushing one of his legs, and instead of rolling me off him, he decided to swiftly kick me in the side instead. I don't know whether he meant to clip my wound or not, but he did and it made me cry out in pain.

"THAT'S IT!" I cried, leaping up and grabbing my pillow. "I'M. GOING. TO. FUCKING. KILL. YOU. WHILE. YOU. SLEEP. DARYL. DIXON!" I growled, separating each word of my threat by hitting him as hard as I could with my heavy feather pillow. He groaned and rolled over so he was facing me.

"What're you doin'?" he whined, still half asleep. I got right up close to his face before answering.

"I'm getting my own back." I snarled before returning to beating him up with the pillow, each strike made me feel a little bit better about being kicked out. He suddenly snapped to his senses and leapt up.

"QUIT IT WILL YA!" He snapped at me, before snatching the pillow from my grasp and hitting me across the head with it. I looked at him with an exaggerated look of shock and darted my hand to his pillow and began beating him with it again. Soon, it became a strange echo of a teenager's sleepover as we had a joking, but still relatively vicious pillow fight, laughing and cursing as we hit each other. We hadn't been as quiet as I'd thought, as the door burst open and a dishevelled and tired, but fuming Maggie stepped in.

"Will you two shut the fuck up and go to sleep?! What are you even doing...are you having a pillow fight?!" She hissed, staring at the pillow in our hands, astonished that we were doing such a thing so early in the morning, astonished that the two most trigger-friendly members of the group were laughing like children and hitting each other with pillows.

"Just cut it out and go to sleep!" She snapped in a violent whisper, before backing out of the room and closing the door sharply behind her. We looked at each other for a few seconds in silence before I spoke.

"Yes mother." I said quietly, and we both fell about laughing. I was sure she'd tell on us later, but I wasn't worried bout it then. Soon, we were both exhausted from the battle and we fell asleep with ease, anger forgotten.

Didn't stop him kicking me repeatedly in his sleep.

Later on, when the dawn had broken and the first light had broken though the curtains and pierced the warm darkness of the bedroom with its razor sharp beams of golden light, I sat, very much awake and scowled at Daryl. He was still asleep, but not for long. I padded backwards a few steps, so that I was pressing my back against the rough wooden door and then I took a short run up to the bed and dived onto it, deliberately making sure I landed smack bang on top of him, like a kid would do to their parents at Christmas. He awoke with a start and yelled at me, bolting upright and causing me to roll further down the bed, laughing at him as I rolled.

"SERIOUSLY, FUCK'S WRONG WITH YOU?!" He shouted, clearly annoyed that I'd woken him up in such an unceremonious manner. I was still giggling feebly at the foot of the bed.

"Don't be such an ass when you sleep, then I'll stop doing it." I advised him. He scowled at me.

"S'the time?" He slurred, still half asleep despite my best efforts. I craned my neck round to look at the clock.

"6:45" I informed him proudly. His frown deepened and his jaw clenched, he looked as if he were on the verge of slapping me. Instead of hitting me, he sunk back down onto his pillows and groaned, pushing the palms of his hands into his eyes. Still giggling feebly at my own doing, I crawled out of bed (awkwardly exaggerating my movements so that I made it as uncomfortable for him as possible) and made my way over to the armoire.

Since we'd been run out of camp, a small team of us (those with the heavy duty weapons) had gone back to try and recover items of clothing, food, rounds and other material possessions we didn't want to leave behind. There were still ten or twenty walkers milling around, and much to everybody's horror, the reanimated corpse of Shane Walsh. I didn't describe to you the trip back to the camp because it was uneventful and extremely emotional. It's not every day the body of one of your friends comes back to try and eat you...though I guess now it is. Anyway, we cleared the camp of all the important things and we made our way back significantly more depressed than when we left.

Pulling off the huge blue t-shirt that I used as a nightie and shoving it in the corner of the closet, I yanked out my regular clothes and quickly got dressed. When I had my T-shirt on, I peered down and looked at the worn Guns n' roses symbol I had on the front, underneath the lovely streak of blood that Daryl had left on there from wiping an arrow across it. I shook my head at the memory and shut the wardrobe, quickly pulling out his clothes as I did so. I turned and balled them up before throwing them at his head.

"Put these on and get downstairs." I instructed. I would have thought he was asleep had he not grinned at me.

"We ain't family, y'can't tell me what to do." He said, smile creeping into his voice. I began to quickly walk out the door.

"That's what your mom said." I quipped as I left, quickly shutting the door behind me. As soon as I shut the door, something hit it on the other side and it sounded pretty heavy. I grinned at my own wit and bolted up the stairs.

When I looked at the house for the first time, I thought it only had two floors; I was wrong. A third floor housed a dolls house style bathroom; white porcelain toilet and sink, clawed white bathtub and an intricately decorated mirror above the sink. I really needed to toilet after I left the bedroom, and having an actual toilet was a luxury you don't think about in the apocalypse. After I was finished in the bathroom, I charged down the stairs, banging loudly with both fists on our bedroom door as possible, and was greeted with some colourful insults from The semi-asleep Daryl. I stopped speeding around once I reached the top of the next flight of stairs. It had a solid oak rail and no obstructions right to the bottom.

What an opportunity to reclaim some of my stolen teenage years.

I glanced around casually a few times then placed a hand gingerly on the rail. One last sweep of the corridor told me nobody was around, so I leapt onto the rail and sat down, sliding down it like a tribute to all the bad teenage 80's movies. As I arrived at the bottom, feeling pretty damn awesome, Dale walked out of the front room and didn't happen to see me in time. My eyes widened as I piped up.

"Look out!" I called as I slipped cleanly off the end of the rail and onto my feet, mere centimetres from colliding with Dale. He stared with eyebrows raised and a slight smile crept across his old and bearded face.

"In the RV I told you to watch where you were going...I think that might have to be a rule everywhere you go, Harper." He suggested. I smiled sheepishly at him before trying to explain myself.

"Sorry. Being a kid again...nearly 18 and the last 2 years I've just spent running." I smiled, more sadly this time. I was 16 when I woke up in the empty warehouse, and over two years a lot had happened, stuff that made my spine shiver and my stomach churn.

I still hadn't gotten any taller.

He smiled sympathetically at me as we walked towards the kitchen, walking quickly to avoid unnecessary conversation with other people.

"Maggie wasn't overtly happy with you this morning." He informed me. I smiled and raised my eyebrows.

"She's never overtly happy with me, but I'm guessing this is to do with the pillow fight?" I asked him, stifling a laugh. He peered at me as I tried not to giggle.

"She said it was your fault she didn't get any sleep last night." He told me, smile creeping across his elderly face. We walked into the kitchen as I frowned at this revelation, and Herschel was sat at the table, demurely sipping a mug of coffee.

"I think it was Glenn keeping her awake last night." I spat. "She hates me for some reason, it wasn't just me, it was Daryl too!" I exclaimed to Dale. I glanced over at Herschel who had cast a warning look in my direction, so I quickly shut up. Dale wandered over to the table and sat down, so I followed suit. I sat down and guiltily stared at the table in front of me. I looked up at Dale, who was sat opposite me.

"I may have been careless with my wording last night." I told him, skirting round the truth. Dale cocked an eyebrow and leant his arm on the table.

"How d'you mean 'careless with wording' ?" He asked slowly, eyes boring through me. I squirmed a little before replying and twined my fingers together before placing them on the table.

"You know that thing Lori said about Daryl? Not that he's trying to kill...the other thing? It was more speculation than anything else." I asked him, hoping that I wouldn't have to explain any further. He nodded knowingly and glanced at Herschel, who was now also staring at me.

"Well there was a silence...and for some reason I felt I needed to fill it with something...so I asked him about it." I told them quietly. "I feel terrible about asking him, it was a stupid thing to do..." I said, as if trying to justify or make up for what I'd done. At that moment, Lori wandered in from the back door carrying some laundry and flashed a huge smile at me, which felt like a bullet of guilt ripping through my heart as I realised the shit I'd dropped her in.

Almost as if on cue, Daryl walked into the kitchen and set the red knife I'd let him keep down on the island. He looked up and saw Lori, and I watched with gut wrenching worry as his jaw clenched and he glared at her. She smiled at him, totally unaware of what I'd let slip, and it was almost like she was poking a bull with a sharp stick.

"Morning Daryl, heard you guys kept Maggie up last night-" she began but Daryl sharply cut her off.

"Don't 'morning Daryl' me, bitch." He snapped, leaving Lori shocked and wounded. But to everyone's discomfort he didn't stop there.

"You got no fuckin' right to start pokin' around in other people's damn business woman, if you don't like me, good for you, but don't go round guessin' and spreadin' things that ain't to do with you!" He snarled at her, squared right up to her face as if he meant to hurt her. I knew that he probably wouldn't, but everybody else thought he was going to beat the living shit out of her. Daryl was just about to start round two of 'let's verbally attack Lori' when Rick rushed into the room and stood in between them with his back to Lori.

"Daryl back off." He growled at the redneck, no hint of nervousness about him. Daryl was a lot taller than Rick, and in his Rick's situation I probably would have shit myself, but the brave sheriff didn't even flinch. This didn't disturb Daryl, so he redirected his anger towards Rick.

"Don't tell me to back off asshole, keep your bitch under control!" He instructed Rick. Rick opened his mouth to reply but Daryl was on a roll.

"Just 'cuz her toyboy got his ass ripped off by walkers, she thinks she can go round makin' gossip 'bout whoever she damn chooses-" he shouted in his face before turning his attention back to Lori. "-well she can't, if I hear one more fuckin' rumour 'bout me woman, you're gonna have to sleep with one eye open." He threatened her, before throwing an angry glance at me and storming out of the room.

The noise had attracted more of the survivors to the room, and soon enough everyone was stood in the kitchen except Daryl. The kitchen was silent for a few minutes, before Lori finally managed to recover from the shock and speak, addressing everyone in the group.

"Who told him?" She asked, voice dripping with her wounded tone, eyes welling up with the shock of being yelled at and the sadness of being betrayed. Everyone was silent, and I couldn't bear it any longer, so I slowly stood up and left the room without catching anybody's eye, too ashamed to even look at them in the knowledge that I'd been the cause of the scene.

Sprinting madly up the stairs after him, the burning gaze of the survivors still searing the back of my neck I couldn't help but let a few tears escape down my cheek and fall to the floor before I reached the bedroom. I roughly wiped them away with the back of my hand before wrenching the door open to talk to Daryl...only when I opened the door, he wasn't in the room. I backed out of the room and desperately began slamming each door open in the hope that he'd be in there, angry, but in the house.

When it became apparent to me that he wasn't in the house, a sinking feeling fell to the bottom of my stomach. As certain as I was that he could take care of himself, I was sick with fear that in his current fuming state of mind he'd do something stupid, or he wouldn't see a walker coming up behind him...

I shoved those thoughts from my mind and grabbed my gun, stowing it away in my waistband before storming down the stairs and making a dash for the back door. Dale, Rick, Maggie and Glenn were all still in the kitchen as I tried to get through, guilt pushed right to the back of my mind. Dale stood up as I marched in, my face a surly mixture of worry and 'don't fucking talk to me.' and he put an arm out to stop me.

"Where you going?" He asked worriedly. I batted his arm away and carried on to the back door, but Rick grabbed the back of my shirt and stopped me.

"Harper, you know the rules, you've gotta go with someone if you're gonna go out. Now I suggest you take Daryl and get him to calm down before he comes back." he sternly suggested. I swatted him viciously away and glared at him.

"Don't start about the rules Rick, I can't go with Daryl, I'm gonna go find him." I snarled. He looked at me, frowning in confusion.

"Yeah, that's right, he's gone, he's not in the house and I can't find him anywhere, so I'm gonna go find him before something happens to him and we end up dragging his body out of the woods." I snapped at him, yanking my shirt away from him and making my way once more towards the back door. Maggie was stood in front of the door in an attempt to stop me leaving, arms folded across her chest with a superior look on her face.

"This wouldn't have happened if you'd just kept your mouth shut, you shouldn't have blabbed to Daryl." she sniped. I scowled at her and put my hand menacingly on my gun.

"And you shouldn't be standing in my way." I growled viciously. She didn't look so sure of herself anymore, regardless of my height. Even though we were only a few years apart, I was about 5'5 and she was a lot taller than me, despite this she looked a little scared and she stepped aside and into Glenn's arms. I wrenched the door open and sprinted into the forest, sick with anger and brimming with pure fear.


	36. A grim encounter

Hours. Hours and hours I was out searching for him, trying to track him down before a walker dug its claws into his neck. I must have been looking for him because I was so angry with myself for dropping Lori in it, and for bringing it up so abruptly with him. I hated the fact that it was me that had upset the moment of peace in the shit-storm apocalypse, so at least by getting him back to the house in one piece I could say that I sort of made amends.

I didn't know what mood he'd be in when I found him, if I found him, so I'd spent a lot of time thinking about what I was going to say when I caught up with him. If I caught up with him. I paced through the forest as it rapidly lost light to the setting of the evening sun, not calling his name in case I attracted the attention of other things. As more tears ran down my face at the dire situation I found myself in, I wished to be anywhere but traipsing through a dirty forest wearing bloodstained clothes, and above all I wished that I'd paid more attention when Daryl tried to explain tracking to me. My arrogance and fatigue had come back to bite me in the ass as I helplessly trawled the cold, darkening woods for the closest thing I had to a best friend.

I stumbled through the forest as it got darker and darker, heart racing a million miles a minute in fear with sweat dripping down my forehead and onto my shoulders, soaking and freezing my shirt. I panted heavily with the effort of clambering over roots and bushes to get back to the house before the walkers became aware of my presence but as I staggered through the dense, freezing undergrowthI heard a noise that startled and stopped my dead in my tracks. It was a heavy, ragged breathing; much like my own but more desperate, and for the first time since I'd left the house I hoped and prayed that I hadn't found Daryl.

As I cautiously picked my way through the unyielding branches and roots, my ankle became tangled in something and I tripped and came crashing down a steep bank and finally landed with a sickening crunch in a freezing cold stream. An agonising pain shot through my side and I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my jaw, trying to fight off the pain. I gasped in pain when I realised there was no point in fighting it, so I tried to ride it out, writing around in agony. I gingerly fumbled around my side until I came to the source of my discomfort; the scarred tissue on my side had split open and right at the edge of the wound there were a few chunky sticks lodged in the dark red blood that was slowly oozing from the reopened wound. I took a deep breath and howled with pain, hoping for a walker to come and finish me off before I passed out from the pain. The contrast of cold air on my burning hot face was uncomfortable and there was moisture forming on my face from my breath which chilled my face even further. Hot tears streaked down my face as I cradled my wound, still laying in the cold water that was flecked with ice and I howled one more time until my lungs were tight and my throat was sore.

Through my pain, I heard something step towards me. The footsteps were too assertive to be those of the dead, so for a shining second I thought that Daryl had found me before a walker had, and that we'd go back to the house and everything would be okay. I rolled my eyes to look up at the person coming towards me, and to my complete horror it wasn't Daryl.

It wasn't a walker. It was a survivor.

A tall, balding, overweight man wearing nothing but a pair of tattered and worn denim dungarees stood over me with a double barrelled shotgun in one hand, and the severed hand of a walker in the other.

I take back everything I said about Daryl being a redneck, he was James Bond compared to this guy. This guy was the living embodiment of cousin-marrying, dynamite-fishing, moonshine-drinking rednecks.

He stood over me, glaring gleefully at me as I writhed in agony in the muddy stream in front of him, a grim mixture of excitement and pride filling his fat, red face. He crouched over me and studied my bruised and shredded face before craning his neck round and calling out to someone behind him.

"JACKSON. LOOKIE HERE AT WHAT I CAUGHT, I CAUGHT US A SURVIVOR." He yelled in a southern accent similar to Daryl's, only more distinctive, emphasising and mocking the word 'survivor' as he looked back down at me. He addressed me for the first time since he'd arrived with disdain and the same tone of mocking he'd used to call out to the other person.

"Wonder how long you're gonna live, lookin' at that nasty bite you got there." He sneered, pushing the metal barrel of his gun against my neck in an attempt to frighten me. I mustered my last ounce of strength and spat in his ugly face, before feebly attempting to roll away from the brute. He swore and stood up before resting his foot heavily on the wound, causing the sticks to push further into the open hole in my side. I screamed from the agony emanating from my side and began sobbing loudly, hoping for a walker to come and finish one of us off. He laughed cruelly down at me and then jerked his head side to side, trying to find the person he was calling.

"JACKSON, GET YOUR ASS DOWN 'ERE BOY! WHERE ARE YOU?" He screamed into the woods, whirling round as he did so. From up on the bank I'd fallen off, I heard a voice ring out across the forest.

"Same place you're goin', asshole." The familiar voice growled down to where I was. Had I not been in such an unbearable amount of pain I'm sure I would have grinned whole-heartedly, but all I could manage was a weak smile. The fat redneck noticed my smile and ground his foot further into my side, causing more pain to shoot through my entire body, almost causing my head to explode. I shrieked a final, bloodcurdling time and heard the whoosh of the air near me as an arrow pierced through it and slid cleanly into the stranger's head, the pointed tip of the arrow appearing out the other side of his skull as he stared at me with empty eyes and collapsed to the ground, thankfully not onto me or my side.

Panting more heavily and more raggedly than ever I stared blankly at the dead body next to me, registering the fact that a living, breathing human being was just killed next to me. Surely enough, Daryl slid down the bank and rushed over to check that I was alive, grabbing my face in one bloodstained hand and turning it left and right to check that I was still all there.

"D'you mind?" I asked weakly, smile starting to creep across my face. He snorted.

"Now the time to be jokin' around, you're nearly dead n'all." He mumbled, pushing leaves and branches out of the way so that he could look more closely at the blood coming slowly from my side. I laughed hoarsely again.

"You know what to say to all the girls." I sniggered again, this time more quietly. When I'd finished talking I screwed my face up and gasped again, as he'd just put a hand over the wound and I jerked around a little to try and ease the pain. His eyes darted around worriedly, wondering whether I was going to die or not. I wrapped an arm round his shoulders and tried to sit myself up. He looked shocked but didn't try and stop me.

"It's not deep, I just need to stop the bleeding." I breathed, gingerly trying to pull out the sticks. At least it was so dark I could barely see the sticks, so pulling them out was a lot easier than it would have been in the light. I grit my teeth and screamed into my closed mouth as I picked the jagged twigs out of the wound. Once I'd taken the worst of them out, Daryl ripped his shirt off and tied it round my waist and over the wound as a make-shift tourniquet. I turned to look at him, colour drained entirely from my face.

"Thanks, we should start moving now." I suggested. He raised an eyebrow at me and stood up, dragging me up with him until I was stood steadily on my feet. Even though my side was still searing with white hot pain, I knew that staying still wouldn't make it any easier. We began walking towards the bank, and started scaling the mound of earth so that we could rejoin the group.

About 30 minutes later, we were getting into a more familiar area of the forest; the area near the house. I glanced at Daryl.

"So did you find me or did I find you?" I asked curiously, my hand still applying steady pressure to the hole in my side. He frowned at me and then smiled slightly.

"I found you. You were 'bout'a become food for some fat ass redneck." he informed me as if I hadn't realised. I laughed loudly at him.

"No, no, I came out looking for you, and here we are, so I found you." I tried to reason with him, still giggling feebly. The laughter hurt my side, but it felt so good to laugh after everything that happened today. We carried on arguing like this for a little while until the house became barely visible up ahead in the distance. A wave of relief hit me and we began to pick up our pace as we made it towards the house.

The next part is the hardest part for me to describe to you, even now as I wash my hands clean of everything.

The air around the house began to fill with the gut-wrenchingly familiar low moans of the undead, and I automatically feared the worst. My heart pounded as images of the house being overrun filled my mind, and as my head filled, so did the forest around the house. I pulled my revolved from my waistband and cocked it, pointing it into the crowd as I did so. I saw Daryl do the same with his crossbow in the corner of my eye, so I knew I wasn't hallucinating. We sprinted forward as quickly as we could, and began to fire rapidly into the crowd of flesh eating maggots that surrounded our home.

The noise from my gun combined with the low moans of the undead must have awoken the rest of the survivors, as Rick, T-Dog and Glenn came rushing out the house and fired manically, bullets tearing viciously through the eyes and heads of the warped flesh that covered the walkers. My body was locked in a battle with itself; the pure effort of keeping the gun held up and my brain telling me none of the fighting was worth it anymore. We'd run far enough into the pack of walkers to be locked in hand to hand combat with them, fending off their cold, clammy grasp with smoking barrels and rapidly fired rounds.

We'd fought as hard as we could against the 20 or so walkers that were staggering around us, desperately trying to reach the house and get inside, but there was still about 5metres between us and the back doors where Rick and the other men were standing, and I could see the fear and the doubt in their eyes that we'd even make it back to them. I was distracted by my concern for Daryl, seeing as he wasn't wearing a shirt and was more exposed to the bite of a walker than any of us were. I saw the panic begin to set in on Rick's battle hardened face as he noticed the bloodstained shirt that I had wrapped around my waist, but I couldn't reassure him about my well being until we reached the safety of the doors.

As we drew closer to the door, Glenn darted forward and grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, clearly more worried about my gaping wound than anything else and went to throw me inside, but I shook away from his grip as I slammed my body into the door, desperate to turn around and find Daryl in the chaos. At that moment, I watched helplessly as he became surrounded by at least 8 walkers who were all desperately trying to sink their rotting fangs into his skin and drag him down to the ground. I let out another blood curdling shriek and began firing blindly into the pack as I threw myself back in after him, hell-bent on pulling him out of the pile of dead flesh that now surrounded him. I sunk the barrel of my gun into the head of one walker and pressed it against the skull of another, blowing the shit out of both of them and tossing their foul remains aside before doing it again to another two.

When I'd cleared enough walkers out of the way, I bent down to where a semi conscious Daryl was kneeling and hauled him up, the adrenalin that pumped through me soothed my own wound as I did and made me numb to my own pain. I wrapped one arm around his chest and dragged him unceremoniously out through the rip in the hoard I'd made, Rick and T-Dog darting over to help me carry him through the back doors and into the house as he leaked blood from two large, glistening holes in his side and shoulder from where he'd been the latest casualty of a walker's ravenous hunger.


	37. Looking out for your own

"Put him on the couch for now, but I don't know what good it'll do him if we just let him suffer like this for long." Herschel's calming voice instructed, as we manoeuvred through the kitchen and hallway to try and save Daryl. When we'd set him down on the once cream couch, now scorched scarlett with the rapidly flowing blood of my best friend, Maggie ran into the sitting room with her arms laden with towels which she dumped on the floor next to the couch and set about pressing them firmly against his wounds. Herschel brushed her aside and began trying to clean them, but he lacked a certain urgency that I'd known him to have before in situations like this.

"Can't you go any faster, he's clearly fighting his hardest here." I snapped edgily, arguing an already lost battle. Herschel didn't even look at me when he gave me a sombre reply.

"He may be fighting, but it's not enough. Those walkers took a huge chunk out of him, and even if he doesn't die from the immense blood loss..." He trailed off, and we all knew exactly what would happen. I just didn't want to believe it. I threw myself on the floor in front of the couch and waved my hand in front of the bleeding, sweating and pale Daryl.

"Come on Daryl it's easy and you know it, just fight it, yeah?" I babbled fiercely, forcing myself to believe he was going to survive. Through his delirious stupor he smirked slightly; even he knew I was being stupid. I clutched a nearby towel and pressed it against his side. He winced slightly and then stopped, breathing heavily and slightly rasping for air.

"Oh stop being such a girl. You've just got to stop bleeding." I said harshly in desperation. I heard Maggie scoff weakly behind me. I snapped my head round and glared at her.

"You got something to say? D'you wanna say it louder?!" I snarled at her, brimming with more hatred for her than ever before. She looked at the ground and shook her head, but said nothing. I turned back to Daryl, who was now whiter than milk and his breathing had become shallow. I panicked and tears started cascading down my face, and I felt my insides tighten. I clutched his arm with both hands as dread and misery leaked from my very core.

"Just fight..." I whispered, choking up. Rick knelt beside me and put a hand consolingly on my shoulder.

"Harper..." He began, but I cut him off.

"He's not dead yet. I don't wanna hear it." I snapped at him, forcing him into silence. I was just about to beg Herschel to do something once more, but I was stopped by Daryl suddenly jerking around violently on the couch, every sharp move he made caused more blood to come pouring out of the dark, menacing wounds. I turned fearfully to Herschel.

"What the fuck's happening?!" I panicked again, as he thrashed around in front of me, losing blood and energy. Herschel shook his head pityingly at me.

"He's having a seizure. He's lost more blood than anyone should, I'm amazed he's managed to hold on for so long...but it won't be long now." He explained quietly. The whole room was washed in an uncomfortable silence that I'll never forget. I turned back to Daryl, who by now had stopped thrashing as he'd given up altogether and was completely still. I stared at him through watery and sore eyes, mouth slightly open in disbelief.

"He's not..." I started, voice catching painfully in my throat. Lori came and knelt down beside me, clasping my hand firmly in her own to try and comfort me.

"I'm sorry Harper, he's gone." She finally said quietly. Hearing it out loud hurt about a million times more than I thought it would and her words stabbed at my heart like poison, drumming the horrible truth into my head. I looked once more at my lifeless friend who lay on the couch, almost asleep, and then jumped up from the floor and glared at Herschel.

"You should have tried harder." I spat coldly. He looked at me again with eyes of pity, which sent me into fits of heated rage.

"WHY DID YOU ALL GIVE UP ON HIM?!" I screamed at all of them, face burning hot from my anger and streaked in boiling water from fresh tears. I turned on Rick.

"YOU WOULDN'T HAVE GIVEN UP ON LORI, WHY HIM?!" I screeched at him, scowling menacingly at him. He stood up and looked at me calmly.

"Course I wouldn't give up on Lori...but she's my wife. Daryl's just your friend." He tried to console me, but that upset me even further.

"Just a friend?" I repeated, deflating at his words. "Do you have any idea how hard friends are to find now? Or are you just lucky enough to make best friends everywhere you go?" I spat at him, hoping to provoke some sort of reaction. He didn't have anything to say to me, so he just turned away from me and focused on someone else. Only a few of us remained in the room now: myself, Lori, Herschel, T-Dog and Rick all stood quietly now, emotions wearing thin as we waited for the inevitable.

I crouched down again next to the ruined couch and stared into Daryl's sunken, blood streaked face. By that point I'd run entirely out of tears and I just watched, drained of feelings and energy as I tried to wrap my head around the events of the night. I picked up one of the clean towels and started wiping away some of the toxic blood from his face and shoulder, wishing hopelessly (and slightly guiltily) that it had been someone else lying in front of me. T-dog leant over and held my wrist aloft, stopping my hand in mid-wipe.

"Don't get too close." He warned me, eyes warily looking at Daryl as he waited for the unavoidable change. I gave a scornful and feeble laugh.

"Should've told me that a year ago." I muttered, pulling my wrist away from the kind, black man who'd done nothing but try and help me.

Two hours dragged themselves laboriously by and everybody except me had either wandered off or gone to bed. I didn't say I wanted to be on my own, but they must have gathered that from my silent and distant nature, and that's exactly what they did. I was sat on the wrecked carpet, leaning defeatedly against the couch and staring at the ornate fireplace opposite me.

"This wasn't supposed to happen." I mumbled, not entirely certain whether I was talking to myself or Daryl's dead body. "I was meant to find you and bring you back to the house...alive." I finished with a cold hearted sigh. I realised that I still had his shirt tied tightly round my waist, so I reached carefully around and undid it, before peeling back my own shirt and observing the damage. It had started to scab over, but it still stung like a bitch whenever I let my mind wander to it. Perhaps now would be the opportune time to remove the bullet shards that were deep within my side, but they caused me little pain in the year preceding that, so I dropped my shirt back and dismissed the thought from my mind.

I felt a subtle movement in the couch, and a 100kg weight dropped in my stomach. It had been so minuscule that I wasn't even sure I felt it, whether my tired and distraught mind was playing filthy tricks on me or not...but it wasn't. Slowly, reluctantly, I turned my head to face the man on the ruined couch. Daryl's eyes had snapped open and instead of the dark green ones that I was so used to, I was glared at by a pair of pale, white and unseeing eyes. I knelt by his head and clenched his throat in one of my hands to stop him biting me. My eyes began to well up as my heart felt heavy, and ice cold chills flew up my spine.

"Daryl." I choked at the struggling walker in my grasp. "Daryl I need you to listen to me." I begged as it snarled at me and struggled weakly. "The others don't know you've come back, and I don't want them to know...they'll kill you when they find out." I whispered through dry sobs. "Thanks though. Thanks for saving me all those times...and thanks for not murdering me in my sleep." I smiled sadly, the heartache not entirely washing away my sense of humour. "Thanks for trying to look out for me...guess I didn't do as well as you would've done, huh?" I asked the growling corpse, struggling for a smile now as I knew he wouldn't have let me get dragged under by rotting, disease bearing walkers. Slowly, I pulled the silver revolver from under my shirt and pressed it shakily against his chin so that it pointed up into his skull.

"This is gonna hurt...me...a hell of a lot more than you." I told him, begging the guy upstairs for my guilt and pain to be eased. "I'm gonna miss you." I sobbed finally, my voice cracked and I began crying fresh and exhausting tears. The snarling became more vicious and he started struggling against the grip I had on his throat, hands desperately trying to rip my skull open. I'd prolonged it as far as I could, but I knew if I left it much longer I'd be joining Daryl, Shane, Beth and countless others before them someplace else. With a final sob, I did it.

With that desperate, final, heart shattering sob, I pulled the trigger and wept for a friend lost.


	38. At the end of all things

I watched silently from the window seat of the bedroom as the fiery orange sun rose from behind a faraway, tree laden hill and coated everything it touched in a gentle golden light. I turned my head towards the perfectly made up bed behind me, my head still swimming in my consuming guilt. Leaning my head back against the cold wall behind me, I blinked the last of an entire night's worth of tears from my weary eyes and dug my knuckles into my sunken eyes. After it had happened last night I stayed with him for as long as I could, but Rick and Dale insisted that I let them take him outside to be buried later in the morning. They removed him from the house and I ran up here and locked the door, longing for the company of nobody but myself until I felt better about what I'd done. Several people called in to me, but I didn't reply. Part of me wanted them to believe that I was dead, and that there was no point talking to me...but I'd had enough of death for one lifetime.

Swinging my legs heavily from the seat, I took a deep breath and sighed. It was too quiet in the room on my own, and it felt bare and cold despite my broken presence within it. The steady tick of the clock on the wall accentuated how long I'd been in there alone with myself, listening to the screaming cries of the memories I now had to carry with me forever. I ran my hands through my matted, blood flecked hair and made the second hardest decision I'd ever made.

The funeral (if you could even call throwing somebody in the ground and listening to people who don't know them talk about them a funeral) was awful. There's nothing else I can say about the funeral.

I wandered out into the back yard to just give the place one final look. All the walkers had cleared away, clearly no longer entertained by the fretting survivors inside and I was able to stroll around for a few minutes with my hands buried deep within my pockets. I walked a few metres from the house before stopping, something caught my eye lying on the ground that I felt couldn't go ignored. I crouched down and picked up the glinting, red knife with shining knuckleduster that I'd given Daryl months before. I turned it over a few times in my freshly cleaned hand, before stowing it in my pocket and standing up again. I wandered back into the house, and I took one final glance at the spot where I'd found it, the spot where the bravest, most reckless person I'd ever known had fallen and carried on walking down the now uncaring corridors.

I'd picked up the rest of my stuff when I'd gone back through the house, not that there were many things to collect. The old photo album from my first house, the katana and the revolver. There wasn't anything left for me, so I made my way quietly and without fuss to the front door, and slipped away while nobody was looking.

I ran my hand almost gingerly across the black leather seat of the SS motorbike out front and gripped the high handlebar with one hand. I threw all of my stuff in the wrinkled saddlebag and swung my leg over the top so that I was sat in the front seat. I clutched both handles for a few seconds, trying to get a feel of the bike I was about to leave on when Rick stepped out of the house, SUV keys in hand, presumably to look for something in there. When he saw me sitting on the bike and ready to go he frowned deeply at me and jogged over.

"Where d'you think you're going?" He asked, stunned. I stared at him with hard eyes for a few seconds, trying to work out what his reaction would be, or whether I should tell him the truth or not. This man had opened his arms up to me a year earlier...he deserved to know the truth.

"I'm leaving...and there's nothing anybody can do or say that's gonna change my mind." I told him, my voice bitter with loss and sadness. He sighed and looked imploringly at me.

"We all feel bad about what happened, but nobody else is runnin' away in secret. Come back inside and we can talk about it." He told me, putting his hands on his hips, waiting for me to follow him in. I stared coldly at him instead.

"I'm not going back inside, Rick, and I'm not talking to anybody about it either. He's dead, I'm leaving, conversation over." I snapped, kicking the bike into action. It roared, as if cheering the rider on in a rumbling, aggressive tone. It continued to rumble loudly, as I wanted to show Rick how little I wanted to talk. He looked defeatedly at me.

"So you're leaving then." He stated sadly over the roar of the bike. I nodded at him.

"I'm sorry Rick, and I really appreciate everything you did for me, even if I was an ass at times. Just...tell them I'm gone. Don't tell them I ran away, or that I died. Just that I'm gone...and that I'm sorry." I finalised, with a weak smile I pointed to my face and started the bike rolling away from him.

"Don't forget me, yeah?" I laughed and screeched off onto the nearby highway, opposite direction to the house and the camp and within seconds I was gone. Out of their lives forever.

That's where I am now. I'm sat on the hot leather seat of the silver and black SS bike that once belonged to Merle and Daryl Dixon, getting some serious distance from the survivors with furious speed. Evening's beginning to fall now, but as long as I keep moving I'll be okay. I've been running away like this for a few years now; finding places to stay and living there, moving on and finding someplace else whenever I need to. My mind wanders back to him every now and then, and I wonder with a cheery sadness what would have happened if things had gone just a bit differently on that cold November night, whether I'd still be part of that weathered band of people or whether I'd be where I am now, tearing down this anonymous stretch of American highway, running from something nameless that I know I'll never really escape from.

All I can say now for certain is that Daryl Dixon was the one person that made better the dark void inside me and he was the one person that looked out for me without fail in times of great need. To me, this means that despite our massive differences and flaws, I'll always consider him as one of my own.

**Gah! I don't know how I feel about ending this...sad, really, I massively enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoyed reading it! This story's come to a natural end, but I've started writing another, only this time with a different OC and different sorts of relationships begin to emerge...there may even be a few familiar faces...**

**Thank you again, I sincerely hope you rejoin me for a spot of fluff in the new fanfic. -Hannah **


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